


Amateur Interpretations of Our Characters

by selfreliantscientist



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Metafiction, lots of AUs, oh god what have I done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:23:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selfreliantscientist/pseuds/selfreliantscientist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil have been together long enough that Carlos notices when Cecil begins to act strangely. He's not behaving like himself, but like someone else's interpretation of what he might be like. And that's just the beginning of their problems.</p>
<p>A story about the problems that happen when people write fanfic about your life. Things get extremely meta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tyranny of Headcanons

Carlos began humming to himself while he washed dishes, completely unselfconscious despite the presence of an audience. He’d finally gotten comfortable enough around Cecil to stop self-monitoring all the time, so he no longer kept those little unconscious habits in check.

Cecil, standing beside him and drying the dishes as Carlos handed them over, started humming along, improvising an elegant counterpoint, probably without even being aware he was doing it. Carlos smiled to himself, thinking how nice it was, after all the violence and anguish of a typical day in Night Vale, to come home to this domestic harmony. He felt Cecil’s hand touch his waist, which was nice, but there were still dishes to wash and he didn’t want to be distracted before they were done.

After a moment, Cecil moved in closer, nuzzling against Carlos’ neck. Carlos giggled, putting down the pan he’d been scrubbing, and turned to put a hand on Cecil’s shoulder. It was wet, but he knew Cecil wouldn’t care. “Cecil, sweetie, can you hold on for just a few minutes? This’ll be done soon, I promise.”

“No,” Cecil said, mouth against Carlos’ skin so that he _felt_ Cecil speaking, “I couldn’t possibly wait.” He wrapped his arms around Carlos, shifting their positions to bring their mouths together, and this was highly unusual behavior from the man who hadn’t so much as initiated a kiss until after they’d filed the standard couple’s contract with the Sheriff’s Secret Police.

“Cecil,” said Carlos, pushing the other’s shoulders to gain enough distance to talk. “What’s going… oh.”

Carlos noticed a variety of things all at once. Cecil was _different._ For one thing, he towered over Carlos, who had to look up to make eye contact despite the scientist’s usual one or two inch height advantage. And his eyes were _purple._ Carlos was having trouble remembering exactly what Cecil’s eye color usually was (he made a note to check a photograph and remind himself what a _terrible boyfriend_ he was) but he knew it wasn’t friggin’ purple, as he certainly would have remembered _that._

And then there were the tattoos. Also purple, the same shade as Cecil’s eyes, they seemed to cover every inch of him. They took the form of tentacles, slipping up out of Cecil’s shirt to entwine his neck and, when Carlos looked down, climbing along Cecil’s arms as well. They seemed to be writhing, which, in Night Vale, no longer struck Carlos as particularly remarkable, but the fact that they hadn’t been there moments before definitely did. As Carlos gaped, trying to figure out what he was looking at, a new tattoo faded into being on Cecil’s forehead, this one shaped like an eye. It blinked, and then it _glowed,_ and Carlos decided that he needed to get Cecil to the lab _immediately,_ before this transformation killed him.

“I thought you wanted to finish the dishes,” Cecil said in a teasing tone of voice as Carlos pulled him out of the kitchen.

“This is more important,” said Carlos.

“Uh-huh,” said Cecil, running a hand along Carlos’ back.

“Cecil!” Carlos admonished his boyfriend before dragging him out of their apartment.

“Where are we going?” Cecil asked, after Carlos had bundled him into his car.

“To the lab. I need to do some tests.”

“What kind of tests?”

Carlos was trying to think through the list of all the materials he should gather once they got to the lab, so he wasn’t really giving all of his effort to the conversation at hand, which is why he just said, “You know. Science-y tests.”

“Ooh,” said Cecil. “I’m very into science.”

The drive to the lab was difficult. Cecil, apparently, couldn’t keep his hands off of Carlos, constantly reaching over, touching his leg or trying to hold his hand. Carlos managed not to crash into anything, though there was a near miss with an imaginary farm truck. He was glad just to get them there in one piece.

He would have expected the lab to be empty, at that time of day, but one of his scientist teammates was sitting at a lab bench with her laptop when he opened the door. “Lucy! Oh good, someone’s here. Could you help me out? Something’s wrong with Cecil.”

“What is it?” Asked Lucy, hurriedly closing her laptop and rushing to the door. “Oh,” she said, when she drew close enough to get a good look at Cecil. “Has he eaten anything that you haven’t?”

“I don’t know,” said Carlos, “But I figure we do a standard tox screen and go from there? Unfortunately, whatever’s affecting him is also making him _extremely unhelpful.”_

Cecil, toying with the top button of Carlos’ shirt (which he would’ve had unbuttoned by now if Carlos didn’t keep pushing his hand away), said, “I’m thrilled that we’re going to make love in your lab, Carlos, but you’d better send your intern home if you don’t want an audience.”

“She’s not an intern,” Carlos protested.

Lucy said, “I see what you mean.”

“I think we might have to get out the restraints,” said Carlos. Cecil had evidently given up on unbuttoning his shirt, and was now sliding his hand underneath it from the bottom. “Can you grab the testing equipment for me while I try to wrangle him?”

Carlos dragged Cecil to the chair they used for test subjects. _Most_ of the people they took samples from in Night Vale were voluntary participants, but sometimes a person turned into a ravening monster of some sort and only became part of the study unwillingly. The scientists would try their best to help, though they were usually unsuccessful. Carlos pulled one of Cecil’s hands, then the other, away from his own body and held them on the armrests.

“Cecil, are you going to be able to sit still and let Lucy and me work on helping you, or-” He was cut off by Cecil kissing him. Holding down both arms hadn’t been enough to get a reasonable conversation out of the radio host, so Carlos began the work of strapping him into the chair. Once he let go of one hand, Cecil had it tangled in Carlos’ hair, which posed a significant distraction.

“Caarlooos,” purred Cecil, “You didn’t tell me you were into bondage! I mean, it’s not really my thing, but I’m sure, with you, _anything_ would be magical.”

Carlos didn’t respond, silently working on restraining his boyfriend so that they could figure out what the hell was wrong with him. Cecil seemed determined to fill the silence on his own.

“Oh, are you maintaining some sort of strong, silent persona? I must say, Carlos, this isn’t a side I’ve seen of you before. So serious. Oh, when you look at me with that stern expression on your face I just _melt._ Please tell me you’re actually going to touch me soon, I mean, I understand the desire to draw things out but this is just too much.”

It was a relief, when Lucy got back, to have someone rational to talk to again. She’d brought the standard sample-collecting equipment: swabs, needles, vials, test tubes. “Thanks, Lucy. Do you… um, could you collect the samples? It’s just, he goes all weird when I touch him.”

“No problem,” said Lucy, putting a reassuring hand on Carlos’ shoulder and then donning a pair of vinyl gloves. She approached Cecil (who was whining something like “Carloooos, come back here Carlos”) and rolled up one of his sleeves.

“Are those… tattoos?” She asked.

“I don’t know. They weren’t there an hour ago. It’d probably be a good idea to take skin samples of the marked areas and the unmarked areas so that we can compare them. They move, too, and I don’t know whether there’s anything particular about skin when they’re not covering at the moment but they _have_ covered it in the past. I don’t know anything. I’m… I’m lost.”

He vaguely expected, and hoped, that Lucy would say something reassuring to him. Instead she was staring intently at Cecil, a step away from the chair. “He looks just like… I mean, it’s ridiculous, but he looks _exactly_ like something I was just looking at before you arrived.”

“Really? What was it?”

That was promising. If Lucy had just recently discovered some new phenomenon, had actually done the preliminary research _before_ Cecil turned out to have needed help, then there was a good chance they’d be able to fix it before any permanent damage was done.

“It was… it’s kind of hard to explain.” Lucy picked up her laptop and opened the door to the lab’s supply room. Cecil’s constant whines and calls for attention from Carlos would be less audible from there, so Carlos followed. “Okay,” said Lucy, leaning against the wall, “So, there are infinite possible universes, right?”

Carlos nodded. This was the sort of conversation he used to have as a student, but then it had always been as a preface to something hypothetical, not a valid part of a discussion of a concrete problem.

“Well, um, I recently found… Um, I can access information from another universe. I don’t really know how, I mean, it’s one of those Night Vale things that happens and there’s really no way to set up a trial because it’s just one incident and I don’t know how it happened and I haven’t been able to make it happen again, but this laptop is connected to the internet from a different universe than ours.”

“O...kay.” Said Carlos. That sort of discovery usually _followed_ an introduction, rather than _being_ an introduction.

“And, well, in that universe, Night Vale doesn’t exist, except as a work of fiction. It’s like a documentary, except instead of being about real stuff in our universe, it’s about fake stuff in their universe. Get it?”

“Soooo… we’re all just, what, characters in some TV show?”

“Well, more like a radio show, but yeah, basically.”

Carlos rubbed his eyes. “Okay, so you saw, like, a synopsis of the next episode? Does it tell us how to get Cecil back?”

“No,” said Lucy, “It wasn’t… it’s not any sort of official material from the show. I was… I was looking at fan art.” She opened her laptop and showed Carlos what she’d been doing before he got there. “This is what some fan thinks Cecil looks like.”

Carlos took a moment to stare at the image. It did look just like Cecil now looked. “So… is this fan, like, predicting things that will happen to Cecil in real life? I mean, our real life?”

“I… don’t think so. I mean, it’s possible, but… Well, there’s nothing here about his personality… I mean, aside from what you can infer… but, um, there’s more.” She bit her lip, looking embarrassed. “There’s… people don’t just draw pictures… they also write… things… and it’s completely inappropriate, I mean, we work together and I should be… it’s just, kind of addictive, and, um, before you got here, I was… I was reading this.”

She clicked to another tab and handed the laptop to Carlos, avoiding his gaze. It was a page filled with text.

_“Cecil, sweetie, can you hold on for just a few minutes? This’ll be done soon, I promise.”_

_“No,” Cecil said, mouth against Carlos’ skin so that he_ felt _Cecil speaking, “I couldn’t possibly wait.”_

“But that’s… that’s _exactly_ the conversation he and I were having before we came here, when he started…behaving oddly…” He read further, as he spoke. The events following that conversation hadn’t gone _at all_ like that in real life. Carlos certainly hadn’t ‘rubbed close to Cecil, allowing the two of them the mutual pleasure and reassurance of one another’s erections,’ or ‘wound up in a slippery tangle of limbs and discarded clothing on the kitchen floor.’ “Except, um, we came here instead of… Instead of that. So, um, you think this is somehow… influencing Cecil?”

“That’s… that’s my best guess,” Lucy confirmed.

“Okay, so what do we do about it?”

“I don’t know that there’s anything we can do,” she said.

“But he can’t go on like this! He has a real life to live, with responsibilities and hopes and dreams and not just a two-dimensional portrait of desire created by the mind of some fanfic author.”

Lucy sighed. “Of course, but… how would you even go about reversing something like this? How do we make him look like he did before, act like he did before? I can’t even… it’s not something I can begin to form a hypothesis about. This is an anomalous case, I don’t know what variables might be in play or how anything at all might affect it.”

“Okay.” Carlos took a calming breath. “The first step is research. Is that… is that the only fanfic and fanart you’ve been looking at?”

Lucy shook her head, eyes cast to the floor. “There are… lots of them.”

“So it’s probably something particular to that one story and/or that one drawing.”

“Well, unless it was something to do with the timing, or with saturation, like, after a certain number of works, there were so many that their influence started leaking into reality, or…”

“We need to focus on one thing at a time, Lucy. Are these ones particularly popular?”

Lucy shrugged. “Not really. I didn’t see any recommendations or discussions about them or anything, I was just looking through a bunch of posts and they were there.”

“Is there anything about these two that stands out, particularly?” Carlos asked.

Lucy shook her head.

“Okay…” Carlos sighed, and, figuring the only way to figure out what was going on was to gather all the relevant information, read through the rest of the story.

It was uncomfortable to read, for a variety of reasons. Most immediately, it was ostensibly a story about Carlos and his boyfriend, which was strange enough on its own, but then just exacerbated by the fact that it was clearly written by someone who only had a cursory familiarity with his or Cecil’s personalities.

Plus, he was standing right next to his coworker as he read it, and the whole thing amounted to nothing but a sex scene. About him. Which his coworker had already read.

If the author _had_ had a clearer understanding of Carlos’ personality, he realized, the situation would have just felt more uncomfortable.

“Um. Are all of the stories like this?” He asked, keeping his eyes on the screen to avoid eye contact with Lucy, because he really wasn’t sure how he would be able to handle facing her at the moment.

“No,” she said, taking the laptop from him. “There are a lot of different ones. Lately lots of people have been putting you two in a Victorian setting.”

“Like with time travel?”

“More like, in an alternate universe there were people exactly like you and Cecil who also had your same names and who also lived during the 1800s. Like this one.”

Carlos watched the laptop cursor moved to a link, and heard the _click_ of a button, and then he was somewhere else.

Cecil was there, holding Carlos’ hand. He looked much more like himself, though fairer than he usually was.

“I know that, as I am an earl and you are my faithful manservant, society expects certain things from us,” Cecil was saying. Carlos noticed his clothes, which were far more formal than Carlos was used to from the man who’d worn furry pants on their first date. A vest and a jacket and an embroidered cravat, like something out of a historical drama. “But tonight, let us forget about society and the laws of man. Please, Carlos, take me to bed.”

Looking around the room, Carlos saw that there was indeed an old-fashioned four-poster bed just to his right. Cecil was pushing Carlos’ hand in that direction, indicating that he wished to be led there.

“Cecil…”

“I love it when you say my name.”

Carlos sighed. “You look more like yourself, but you’re still acting like… well, like a fanfic caricature of yourself. We’ve got to get this figured out.” He extracted his hand from Cecil’s, ignoring the whine of protest. The window curtains were drawn, so Carlos went to lift them and look outside. Aside from a reflection of his own face, he saw darkness. Cupping a hand against the glass, he could make out the outlines of some trees in the moonlight. “Where are we?” He asked, mostly to himself.

Cecil answered anyway. “Why, my estate in Hampstead, of course. We traveled here so that I could attend my dear friend Lady Hart’s daughter’s coming-out party. And now, since this house is so rarely occupied and therefore has no permanent staff, we are all alone. This is time we should not waste, my dear Carlos.” Cecil walked forward, put his hands on Carlos’ shoulders, and gazed into his eyes. “I have been waiting entirely too long for this,” he said, attempting to bring their mouths together.

Carlos turned away, leaving Cecil to lightly kiss his chin. They were… trapped, somewhere, and Cecil was, if anything, less stable than he had been before. Taking stock of the situation, Carlos realised that, while Cecil had been put into costume for the occasion, his own clothes were the same as they had been before, right down to the phone in his pants pocket. He called Lucy.

“Carlos! What happened? You just disappeared!”

“I don’t know,” said Carlos, “But I’m with Cecil, and he’s acting even weirder. He thinks he’s an earl, or something. I’m not sure where we are… some sort of bedroom. It’s nighttime. I don’t really know anything else.”

“Does the bed have a seafoam green blanket with seahorses embroidered on the edges?” Asked Lucy.

“...Yes,” said Carlos. “How did you know that? Where are we?”

“What devilry is this, Carlos? You speak with an absent individual, and obtain some sort of response? What quality does this individual possess, to occupy attention that ought rightly to be paid to me?” Cecil was reaching for the phone, but Carlos batted his hand away and only missed the first couple of words of Lucy’s response.

“...story where Cecil’s the Earl of Essex, and you’re his manservant. It’s the one I clicked on to show you what I meant by Victorian setting. I don’t know if you were transported to that story because I clicked on it, or if that’s just a coincidence. But you must not actually _be_ in Victorian England, because your phone is working-”

“I’m not really concerned with the phone right now, Lucy. I’m just grateful I have it. Let’s focus on trying to get me and Cecil home again.”

“But, Carlos,” Cecil interjected, “Why would you want to go home? We’re alone here.” He stroked a lock of Carlos’ hair. “We can do what we like. Unless… Carlos, have you changed your mind? I thought you wanted this as much as I did, but now you’re so… so distant, so strange… Was I wrong, Carlos? Do you not love me as I love you?”

“Ugh, _Cecil,”_ said Carlos in exasperation. He was trying to focus on his conversation with Lucy, on solving the problem at hand, but Cecil was being _needy_ and, while Carlos would readily admit that he wasn’t the best boyfriend in terms of emotional availability and supportiveness, he still tried the best he could, and leaving Cecil upset and doubting his love was absolutely out of the question, no matter how odd Cecil was acting. Carlos pulled Cecil closer, kissing him gently. “Sorry Lucy,” he explained into his phone, “Were you saying something?”

“I was asking where you are now,” said Lucy.

“We haven’t moved. Still in that bedroom with the seahorse sheets.”

“Shit,” said Lucy, “I thought that would work.”

“You thought _what_ would work? Cecil, _please,_ I’m trying to focus!”

Cecil had, at this point, thrown his arms around Carlos’ neck and was whispering “Dear Carlos, just tell me what I did wrong and I’ll make it up to you I’m sorry” like some sort of very distracting cloak.

Lucy’s voice came through the phone. “I thought, if opening that Victorian alternate universe story somehow made you appear in that story, then maybe if I opened the first one again, the one in the kitchen from earlier, then you’d show back up here. Or maybe not here, but at least back in your kitchen, which would be close enough. But I guess it didn’t work, and I don’t know if that’s because you’ve already been there and it only works once or because it doesn’t actually work that way at all or if there’s something else going on.”

“Okay,” said Carlos, trying to assess the implications of what Lucy was saying while ignoring Cecil’s arms around his neck and supplications whispered in his ear. “Maybe… could you try opening another one, just to see what happens?”

“Uh, yeah. Trying that now. Loading the index page… here we go. I don’t really know what this one is, it’s the first one on the list that I haven’t clicked on before. Where are you?”

_Good question._ Carlos wasn’t in the Victorian bedroom anymore, that was for certain. Cecil was still pressed against him like before, and Carlos still felt Cecil’s arms around his neck, but he was lying on his back. It was difficult to see his surroundings with Cecil on top of him, but he caught sight of a window, and through that window, a familiar treescape.

“I think I’m in Mission Grove Park. Specifically, I think I’m in a car parked in Mission Grove Park.”

“Oh, Carlos,” Cecil said, head right in front of Carlos’ own, “Were you so lost in my embrace that you forgot where we are? That is _so sweet.”_

Cecil didn’t look anything like himself anymore. The third eye was back, but as an actual eye, not just a tattoo. It was too dark for Carlos to clearly make out his eye color, but his hair seemed almost white, glowing in the dim illumination of Carlos’ phone.

Said phone emitted a beeping sound, just as Lucy was saying “That would be consistent with the story that I sent you to. Why don’t you come back to the lab, and we’ll see if we can figure this out.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan,” said Carlos. “Cecil, Lucy needs help with something at the lab. I need to go.”

“But Carlos,” Cecil protested, “We can’t move until the electro-rhinos have finished their migration! If they see the car moving they’ll charge it. You said we’d only be safe from their lightning attacks in the car because it’s a whatsit-cage thing.”

“A Faraday cage?”

“Yeah,” said Cecil, in a distracted tone of voice. He brought his head even closer, and licked Carlos’ jaw. His tongue, Carlos noted, was definitely much longer than it usually was. “That.”

A _beep_ sounded from Carlos’ phone. He was still connected to Lucy, but the “Low Battery” sign was flashing. “Ugh. Lucy, it sounds like we’re stuck here. And my phone is dying. If you can get us somewhere with a phone charger, that would be great.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” Carlos heard, before his phone beeped again, and then stopped making sounds entirely. He tried holding the power button, and it halfheartedly lit up before going dark again.

Carlos let the hand holding the phone fall to his side, wondering what he could do now, before he was distracted by Cecil’s hands stealing under his shirt. “Cecil, please, not now.”

“It’s okay, my darling Carlos. Relax. I’ve got you.” Cecil’s arms moved gently from where they are wrapped around Carlos’ neck, down to support his back, and Carlos realized that Cecil was somehow holding him while both hands were occupied with exploring the surface of his chest and _just what the hell was going on here._

“Cecil…” Carlos twisted to look at the limbs that were holding them, trying to make them out in the dark car that was only occasionally illuminated by flashes of electrical discharge. In one such flash, Carlos could make out the rounded shape of the limbs that wrapped around him. He held a hand to one, and traced it up to where it protruded from Cecil’s back.

“That tickles,” said Cecil, giggling.

Once Carlos got an idea for what to look for, he saw that there were more of these limbs… these sinuous, flexible limbs, emerging from Cecil, besides the two that he’d been aware of initially. They were not only wrapped around his back… at least three were holding his legs, where he’d just assumed he was feeling Cecil’s weight or some constriction caused by the way his clothes were bunching, and one wound up the arm that Carlos hadn’t been using to talk on the phone. Not only was Carlos trapped in a small enclosed space with his mentally destabilized boyfriend, but said boyfriend was now some sort of tentacle monster.

The panicked feeling that began to rise within him was overtaken by outrage when he felt a pinch at an areola.

“CECIL! I AM NOT IN THE MOOD!”

Carlos felt the tentacles around him loosen their grip, and he used the freedom thus offered to sit up against the car door, backing away from Cecil. The reporter, meanwhile, pouted at him, and Carlos noted that the third eye was remarkably expressive.

“What’s… I… did I do something wrong, Carlos?”

“Ugh. Cecil. It’s just… it’s to do with context.” If they were at home, in bed, and relaxed, and Carlos wasn’t freaking out about Cecil’s tentacles being all over him and trying to find a way out of this bizarre fanfiction trap, then the kind of attention Cecil had been paying him would have been more than welcome. As things were, though, any sort of stimulation to sensitive parts of Carlos’ body were discomforting at best. He needed to _think._ “I need to figure out how to get us back to the lab,” said Carlos, gesticulating with his phone. “If we can get back there, then maybe _you_ will start acting normal again and _I_ can get a quiet moment to myself.”

As he spoke, the scene melted around him and reformed into a different location, Carlos sitting in a little rowboat in a bay, and he promptly dropped his phone into the water.

“Shit!”

“What’s wrong, Carlos? Did you need that?”

Cecil had, evidently, decided to go for a swim. His head emerged from the water next to the little boat.

“Yeah,” said Carlos, dispassionately. “It was pretty important.”

“Okay then!” Said Cecil, before disappearing under the water.

“Cecil, wait! It’s not _that_ important! You don’t know how far down this portion of the bay goes!”

Of course, sound waves tend to be distorted when traveling from air into water, because of the different speeds at which sound travels through the different materials, the irregularity of the interface, and the general difficulty of transmitting human vocal patterns through water at all, so it was unlikely that Cecil heard or understood him. Carlos looked into the water, searching for a sign of his boyfriend, but couldn’t see anything. The water was cloudy here, thick with plankton and dirt from the shore and whatever else traversed the ocean and obscured the view of scientists who’d just lost two very important things.

_I guess I’ll have to go after him,_ Carlos reflected. He wasn’t a particularly strong swimmer, but he had to at least _try_ to find Cecil and pull him up to the surface so that he wouldn’t drown in pursuit of a stupid piece of electronics.

Carlos was just removing his shoes in preparation for jumping into the water when Cecil’s head splashed into view. It was followed shortly by Cecil’s hand, holding Carlos’ phone. Cecil beamed, wearing the proudest expression Carlos had ever seen on him.

“Cecil! You’re all right!” Carlos cried, reaching out to embrace Cecil. His shirt was soaked from contact with someone who’d just emerged from the water, but at the moment that didn’t matter. “You had me so worried.”

“I don’t know why you’d get worked up over _me,”_ said Cecil. “I’m just glad I got your little toy back to you. You said it was ‘pretty important.’ What is it, anyway?”

“It’s just a phone, Cecil. It’s not all that important. Certainly not compared to _you,_ anyway.” Carlos took the phone back from Cecil. He was grateful for the effort Cecil had gone to to return it, but he knew it was probably too badly damaged by the seawater to work again anyway. Ah, well. At least he could extract his SIM card. He looked at Cecil again. “ _Please_ don’t ever risk your safety for something like this a…” He trailed off, distracted by a new thought. “Cecil. You have a tail.”

Cecil looked at him quizzically. “Of course I do, silly.”

Carlos sighed, rubbing a hand against his eyes. “So there’s some fanfic author who decided to turn you into a merman. Great. That’s just great.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. Or so upset. You seemed to like my tail well enough the other day, when I pressed it between those legs of yours and wriggled.” Cecil’s voice dropped on that last sentence, becoming low and suggestive.

Carlos kept his hand over his eyes, not wanting to look at Cecil. Couldn’t any of these writers get their minds off of sex? Hopefully Lucy would be able to figure out what to do. She should be able to. Carlos couldn’t contact her to tell her what was going on, and he needed more than just a charger, now; he needed a replacement phone. It wouldn’t have to be _his_ phone, he could use Cecil’s, but he would have to get to a setting where Cecil _had_ a phone.

Damp fingers gripped his wrist. “Carlos,” Cecil said, his voice no longer seductive but simply caring and gentle, “I’m sorry. Please, tell me what’s wrong. Or at least look at me.”

Carlos allowed his hand to be pulled away, and looked down at Cecil, staring up at him so kindly, and looking so much like Cecil was meant to look, bottom half excluded. “Oh, Cecil,” Carlos said, putting a hand to the other’s cheek. Cecil’s face lit up at the contact, sending a bittersweet pang of emotion through Carlos; it was gratifying to see such a joyous expression on his beloved’s face, but it was so unlike the typical reaction Cecil would have given him that it just reinforced the wrongness of their situation. “You’re not meant to be like this. We’re not meant to be here. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

Cecil’s eyebrows contracted, and he opened his mouth to speak.

The world transformed again. Carlos was standing in a large room… a lecture hall, he realized… and it was mostly empty. A handful of people were exiting through a door at the top of the stairs. Carlos watched them leave from the front of the room, facing an array of empty seats, save the occasional abandoned cup of coffee.

Carlos looked behind him as the door swung shut after the last leaving student. A screen displayed a diagram of a cell, with labels identifying the components of the cell walls. So, he was… attending a college biology lecture, then.

His phone was no longer in his hand, but then, it wasn’t likely to work after the boating incident anyway. He checked his pockets to see if the author of this piece of fanfiction had deigned to provide him with a new phone, but there was nothing in his pockets. He checked all of them, pants, shirt, and labcoat. He hadn’t been wearing a labcoat, before. His clothes had been unchanged since he’d first noticed something wrong, and who wore a labcoat to wash dishes? But then again, Carlos thought, who wore a labcoat to attend a biology lecture?

A hand touched Carlos’ shoulder. He looked behind him as a familiar voice said, “Professor Garcia.”

_Garcia._ So, these fanfic authors couldn’t even get his last name right. And he was a professor, was he? Then he was _giving_ a biology lecture.

Having got Carlos’ attention, Cecil withdrew his hand, and looked a little bit shy and absolutely adorable and entirely too young.

“What is it, Cecil?” Carlos asked. He took in Cecil’s hoodie, his backpack, his obvious youth. He looked about sixteen, but then, he could have been closer to twenty. It was difficult to tell.

Cecil spared a glance backward at the hall that was now empty except for the two of them. Smiling with forced confidence through his obvious nervousness, he said, “Well, last week you said that, because I did so well on the, um…” Cecil hesitated, seeming uncharacteristically shy. Carlos attributed his hesitancy to his apparent youth. “On your… _oral exam…_ that I could… that you would give me something more… in-depth… next time. And, um, I think I’m ready now. I mean, I’ve been practicing. I’m sure I’m ready.” Cecil closed with a hopeful smile directed at Carlos, who took a moment to sort through his circumlocutions. When Carlos worked out what Cecil was saying, it was a moment of such sudden shock and realization that he felt as though his eyes might have popped out of his head.

“Oh, _don’t_ tell me I’m abusing my position as a professor to elicit sexual favors from a star student.”

“You’ve never called me a star student before…”

“Oh god, am I trading sexual favors for boosting a failing student’s grade? That’s _much_ worse.”

The hopeful smile had dropped from Cecil’s face, replaced by a look of confusion. “But... you said I was special. You said you’d never felt this kind of connection with a student before.”

“And I’m sure every college professor who’s ever taken advantage of a student has said something similar. Cecil,” said Carlos, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder, because no matter how Cecil had been warped, Carlos still had to comfort him. “A relationship with a teacher is always a bad idea. You have to take care of yourself.”

Cecil stared at Carlos, eyes beginning to glisten with tears.

“Now,” said Carlos, before Cecil could protest, throw his arms around Carlos, and/or collapse to the floor in a fit of emotional outpouring, “Do you have a phone I could borrow?”

“What? Oh, um, of course I do…” Said Cecil, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie and pulling out a phone with a sheepish look that Carlos assumed probably meant _I’m sorry I was texting during class._

As Cecil’s hand moved towards Carlos, though, it transformed, losing fingers and developing claws and stiff hairs, elongating into a skewer-like appendage and dropping the phone, which melted into air even as Carlos grabbed for it.

They weren’t in a lecture hall anymore; they were in Cecil’s bedroom, with Carlos actually sitting on the bed, staring dumbfounded at the creature Cecil had transformed into. _Hideous_ wasn’t a strong enough word to describe it. Carlos struggled to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. The creature seemed too large for the room to contain it, towering above Carlos without seeming to take up any space at all. Carlos’ head started to hurt from looking at it. He could, just barely, focus on one feature at a time. A tentacle here, an eye there, a spiderlike leg and a scorpionlike sting, all seeming to overlap and coexist in a limited amount of space. It was as if someone had told a video game engine to render every available monster in the same location, leaving a conglomeration of competing parts to move around and through one another.

“Carlos?” Came Cecil’s voice, from somewhere in the vicinity of the creature, “Don’t you love me like this?”

A moment later, Carlos was waking up, breathing heavily and certain that the whole ordeal had just been a dreadful nightmare. But, he was wearing his lab coat in bed, which was unusual, unless he’d actually been _that_ tired when he got home from the lab, and he certainly didn’t remember any particularly draining experiments from the day before. Sitting up to pull off the unsuitable sleepwear, he caught sight of Cecil lying next to him, wide-eyed and staring.

“Oh, sorry Cecil. Did I wake you?”

Cecil shook his head, still gazing at Carlos in a manner that was undeniably off-putting.

“Okay then,” said Carlos, draping his lab coat on a bed post and lying down again, “Let’s just both try to get back to sleep, all right?” He watched Cecil’s eyebrows lower in confusion, but decided it wasn’t important enough to bother asking about before morning. He closed his eyes, settled his head more comfortably on the pillow, and very nearly missed hearing Cecil’s soft reply.

“You know I don’t sleep.”

It sounded so matter-of-fact, no admonishment or shock or amusement, just a statement. Carlos opened his eyes again. “What?”

“You know I don’t sleep.”

“No…” said Carlos, “I don’t know that. What are you talking about? I’ve seen you sleep before.”

Cecil shook his head. “I pretend to sleep, like everybody. But you are much better at it than I am. You keep the charade up even when you talk about sleeping, which is great, but I don’t have your dedication.”

“What? Cecil, I don’t pretend to sleep. I actually sleep.”

“Of course you do,” Cecil said with a wink.

“No, seriously, Cecil. I know there’s that whole thing where sometimes the existential dread of the void lying oppressively over us all gets to you, and on occasion we’ve all been known to spend a sleepless night considering the things that frighten us, but people still sleep. I sleep. You sleep. Josie sleeps. I’m not sure about the angels, but-”

A finger pressed against Carlos’ lips. “If they existed, the angels would certainly pretend to sleep like everyone else,” Cecil said.

“You’re not on air, Cecil. You can… oh.” Realization dawned on Carlos. “I didn’t really wake up, did I? This is still part of the dream.”

“It worries me when you talk like that, Carlos,” Cecil said, but Carlos was already sliding out of bed, too preoccupied with what he took to be his own mental predicament to pay attention to what dream-Cecil had to say. He opened the door to the living room.

And stepped into daylight.

Cecil was standing in the living room, causing Carlos to look back into the bedroom where he’d last seen his boyfriend. The bed was empty, now. No Cecil. No labcoat, either, Carlos noticed, as he seemed to be wearing the garment again. With the gradual clarity of waking up, Carlos realized that he probably hadn’t been dreaming, and remembered that he needed to find a phone and call Lucy as soon as possible.

“Hey, Cecil, can I borrow your phone?”

“There’s no time for that, Carlos.” A pair of hands grabbed Carlos’ shoulders, drove him back into the bedroom, turned him around. Cecil kissed him, quickly and sloppily, before pushing him onto the bed. “An erotic spider bit me while I was at work. We have to have sex until the venom has been neutralized.”

“Wait, Cecil!”

“I _can’t_ wait. I said, there’s no _time.”_ Cecil growled, not in an attractive or alluring way, just an animalistic and dangerous sound that Carlos thought was more befitting to a predator than a lover. “I didn’t want our first time to be like this either but there just isn’t any other option.”

“First time? What… but… Cecil, this doesn’t even make any sense!”

“What doesn’t make any sense, Carlos?”

Cecil sounded calmer, now. More like his usual self. He pulled back and gave Carlos room to sit up.

“Do you need to take a break?” Cecil asked. “There’s clearly still some residue of the toxin in your system, but I’d say you should be safe for a couple of hours if you want some rest.”

“Um,” said Carlos, trying to get a sense of his current situation, “Yeah. A break… would be good.” He didn’t know what he was taking a break _from,_ exactly, but he supposed it didn’t matter.

“Water?”

Cecil held up a plastic bottle, offering it to Carlos. He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but hydration is a good idea under most stressful circumstances. Moving to accept the bottle, Carlos’ clothes felt odd against his skin, and that’s why he bothered to notice that he was presently naked underneath his labcoat. Not only that, he was also unmistakably physically aroused.

His first instinct was to draw his labcoat closed and cover himself up. Cecil didn’t say anything, but looked at Carlos’ hand holding one side of the labcoat over the other with a puzzled expression. It was a little silly, Carlos supposed as he drank his water, to hide his body from Cecil. It wasn’t as though the other man hadn’t seen it before. But these were unusual circumstances, and Carlos couldn’t help but feel vulnerable. It was one thing to take off his clothes in Cecil’s presence, or even for Cecil to undress him, but suddenly finding himself exposed without any knowledge of how he became so was something else.

“Can I get you anything else, Carlos?” Asked Cecil in that tone that people use when talking to someone who is incapacitated by illness.

“Yes,” said Carlos. “Can I borrow your phone? I misplaced mine, and I need to talk to Lucy about something.” It was hardly even a lie of omission. Carlos was proud of himself for speaking so calmly. Cecil was acting more like himself, and even if their present circumstances were somewhat unusual, being naked in a lab coat was the closest Carlos had come to _normal_ since this whole business had started.

Cecil just said “Of course,” and stood up to grab his phone from its typical spot on the dresser.

“Thanks,” said Carlos, taking it. “I’m… We might be talking about some confidential data, so I’ll just go into the living room while I talk to her, okay?”

Cecil nodded, and Carlos stepped out of the bedroom. Though Cecil seemed rational and levelheaded at the moment, recent experience had taught Carlos not to trust that he would remain so.

He sat on the edge of the couch, buttoned his labcoat because he figured he might as well pretend to have some dignity, and called Lucy.

“Cecil?” Her voice asked.

“It’s Carlos. I’m using Cecil’s phone.”

“Carlos! I’m so sorry about earlier. I’ve been trying to find a story that would let you pick up a phone… I figured if you didn’t call after a few minutes I should move on to another one, but there were a couple that I figured I shouldn’t let you stay in for too long after I glanced at what they were… are you okay? Where are you now?”

“I’m home,” said Carlos.

“Oh, good. How’s Cecil?”

“He’s… pretty normal right now, I think. No tentacles, no petting my hair or anything.”

“Oh my god, was he really petting your hair?”

“He wouldn’t stop! But, uh, there’s something else.”

“What’s up?” Asked Lucy.

“Okay, at first, whenever there was a… transition, for lack of a better word, Cecil would seem different, like he’d be wearing different clothes or acting different or looking different and one time he was a merman,” Carlos paused for a moment while Lucy laughed at this, “but I was still myself. I was wearing the same clothes, and I remembered what we were doing before, even though Cecil didn’t. But now… I’m wearing a labcoat, and I wasn’t earlier. And I’m not wearing anything _under_ the labcoat. I mean, before I was wearing clothes under the labcoat, but then there was another transition and I wasn’t anymore.”

Lucy made a “hm” noise. “So, your clothes are changing. But you’re otherwise unaffected?”

“Well, um, there’s… one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m… I have an erection, but I don’t know if that’s like the clothing thing or just a natural… I mean, I’ve been experiencing a _lot_ of sexually relevant stimuli, so it’s entirely possible that my physical state doesn’t really mean anything, but I just… I don’t know. There’s insufficient data.”

For a little while Lucy was quiet. “I’m sorry, Carlos,” she said at last. “I’m sure this is difficult on you. Um, when you can, why don’t you get dressed and come back to the lab. I don’t know if you should bring Cecil or not…”

“Yeah, I’m not sure. I mean, he seems pretty reasonable right now. But then, he’s been pretty damn changeable today.”

“I’ll leave it up to you, then. We can restrain him again if necessary, but I think we’d both rather avoid that.”

“Yeah,” said Carlos.

“Okay. I’ll see if I can find a solution, and you just get here when you--dammit!” Lucy swore on the other end of the line.

“What? What happened? Lucy, it’s shifting again. What did you do?” Carlos babbled in a panic, standing up as the light changed, the sun no longer shining in the window, interior lamps taking its place. Cecil emerged from the bedroom, grinning wickedly, pupils so dilated with arousal that Carlos could see it from meters away. Carlos felt a shiver go through him as his body went cold with anxiety.

“It’s this damn trackpad!” Said Lucy. “It’s too sensitive; I keep clicking when I don’t mean to. I opened a different story, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Um… yeah, I guess? For the moment, anyway.” To Cecil he said, “Sorry, this is important. I’ll be done in a moment, okay?”

“Any other changes?” Lucy asked. “Clothes still in the same state? Is your erection gone?”

Carlos had already looked down at himself to see what he was wearing (or not wearing) and so he saw the answer to the second question before Lucy asked it.

“Lucy,” he said, “What the hell kind of story is this?”

“I don’t know! It’s just something totally random that my cursor was on… Um, it’s called ‘Carlos’ Awesome Little Secret’... the tags say things about tentacles… it might just be one where you have a tentacle fetish, do you want me to read it and see?”

“I don’t have a tentacle fetish, Lucy. I actually have _tentacles.”_

“Really?” Said Lucy in surprise. “Usually Cecil’s the one with tentacles if they’re there at all-”

“WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH THESE STORIES AND TENTACLES?”

“They’re just a generic ‘weird’ thing for people to latch onto when-”

“Thank you, Lucy, but I didn’t actually want an answer, there. Just… just please, my penis has been replaced by tentacles and I need to get it back. I _like_ my penis. I don’t want it to be missing. Please can you-”

“Wait, Carlos, I’m getting a call from Judy. Champ’s been sick, so if she’s calling she might really need my help so I really need to answer. I’ll get back in touch with you as soon as I can okaybye!”

The line went dead, Lucy having disconnected to help out her twin sister, who, Carlos suspected, probably was not nearly as much in need of help as he was. Shaking his head, he put the phone in his lab coat pocket.

“Are you done with your incomprehensible phone call, now, Carlos?”

Looking up, Carlos saw Cecil, still grinning with desire.

Carlos sighed. “Yeah. I’m done.”

“Good,” Cecil purred, closing the gap between them and wrapping his arms around Carlos. “Then we can get back to business.”

Cecil leaned his face in towards Carlos’, but Carlos pulled back before they could kiss. “Actually, Cecil, I’m in a really bad space right now. I could really use some alone time. I know that’s not what you want to hear right now, but…”

“No, no, it’s all right,” said Cecil, though his voice rang with disappointment. “Although, are you sure you want to be alone? If you need support, a shoulder to cry on or something… like, you could send me out to do shopping for you if you need anything…”

Carlos smiled. “Thanks, Cecil, but, really, I think it would be better if you left. Just for a while. I just need to get my head on straight, you know?”

“Oh, of course! Having one’s head on the right way is of supreme importance. I’ll leave you to your cranial calibrations, then.”

“Great. I’ll call you when I’m ready for company again.”

Carlos kissed Cecil softly by way of goodbye. After his boyfriend had left, he actually took stock of himself.

He was wearing slightly more clothes than before. Still no pants, but at least he had a t-shirt on under the lab coat, which he decided to count as a win. He buttoned up his lab coat to provide some semblance of decency, though his tentacles had a tendency to wiggle through the gap, which was not only annoying but also _tickled._ He couldn’t imagine trying to stuff those things into an ordinary pair of pants, so he resolved to just go lie in bed until Lucy called again.

Trying to climb under the blanket while wearing a lab coat proved uncomfortable and awkward. It wasn’t the sort of thing Carlos would like to do under normal circumstances, and now, with multiple unfamiliar appendages writhing between his legs, brushing against the starchy fabric of the coat and responding to every slight bit of pressure, it was positively ungainly.

Carlos undid the buttons, hand brushing against a few of the tentacles, and he shuddered at the sensation of his fingers touching those slick, cool tendrils. His new appendages were extremely sensitive. Experimentally, he touched them again, lightly at first, feeling guilty and confused about the pleasure that gave him. When he combed his fingers through the mass of them, squeezing as he pulled, the action elicited a breathy moan from his throat.

There no longer seemed any point maintaining an air of unaffectedness, and he didn’t think there was much he could do anyway until Lucy bothered to contact him again. He decided to enjoy what he had while it lasted.

Carlos removed his labcoat and the t-shirt, and, naked, wrapped himself in the softest blanket on his bed. When he was as comfortable as he could make himself, he started playing with the tentacles in earnest, using both hands, twirling, stroking, rubbing, squeezing, mapping out a whole new set of sensations and physical responses. It was the most fun he’d had in recent memory. He reflected that it probably would have been even better with someone else there, and that he shouldn’t have sent Cecil away.

As if the world was responding to his thoughts, another hand appeared alongside his own, another set of fingers stroking the tentacles. Cecil was on top of him, now, also naked and panting in time with Carlos. He could feel the firm but yielding surface of a penis being brushed by his fingers, and after a moment he realized that it was his own penis.

The tentacles weren’t attached to Carlos at all; they were Cecil’s, gently but insistently sliding against him and overwhelming him with sensation.

It would seem Lucy had successfully returned Carlos’ anatomy to its natural state. Carlos really should have gotten dressed and gone to meet her at the lab then. They needed to get to the bottom of this.

But… Cecil’s tentacles felt _so good,_ and it was such a relief to have his genitals restored, and it would be terribly rude to make Cecil stop right in the middle of what they were doing, wouldn’t it?

Carlos decided it couldn’t possibly hurt to wait until he and Cecil were finished before returning to the lab.

Their movements were languid, unhurried. Cecil would shift his center of balance, pressing his weight against Carlos in different ways, and each time Carlos would involuntarily gasp or moan or make some other undignified sound. After a few minutes, the gasps became more frequent, and Carlos lost himself, thrusting upwards into the appendages between them, spilling his essence against Cecil.

Cecil pulled him into a kiss, then, during which Carlos felt all of the tendrils tighten around him for just a moment. Cecil let out a restrained grunt, before releasing Carlos’ mouth, lying on his side, and wrapping his arms around Carlos’ chest.

As Carlos caught his breath, he tried to think of something to say. Cecil closed his eyes and rested his head against Carlos with a contented smile. Carlos could feel the tentacles just barely touching his leg, then, no longer moving appreciably. Apparently, Cecil didn’t think there was anything that needed to be said.

“I love you.” Carlos broke the silence.

Cecil didn’t open his eyes, just stayed where he was and mumbled “I love you too, Carlos,” in a sleepy voice.

Carlos wondered if he would ever get Cecil back to normal. His feelings were mixed; while the tentacles were, he’d now confirmed, delightful, he’d been quite fond of his boyfriend’s original genitalia.

For the moment, though, he was comfortable and full of endorphins, and falling asleep next to his wonderful and impossible boyfriend seemed like a pretty good option. So he let himself relax, closed his eyes, and decided that “back to normal” could wait until morning. Maybe it could even wait until he’d had another go with the tentacles.

A few minutes later, Carlos heard a whine from Cecil, and opened his eyes to see what the problem was. He was in a different position, now, kneeling on a tile floor, thankfully fully clothed (including the now-ubiquitous labcoat). The space he was in was small; he couldn’t lift his head much without bumping it against something. That something was the bottom of Cecil’s desk, as it turned out. And directly in front of Carlos, where Carlos had to tilt his head up to see his face, was Cecil.

Actually, _directly_ in front of Carlos was Cecil’s penis, breathtakingly restored to its rightful place, and _glistening._

_“Carlos,”_ Cecil whined, causing Carlos to look up and see his pained expression beneath the headphones he wore at work, “Why did you _stop?_ There’s less than a minute left in the weather and if I don’t finish before I’m back the air I’ll be _ruined.”_ He shifted as he spoke, causing the moist tip of his penis to brush against Carlos’ mouth.

In a moment, Carlos understood the situation he’d been thrust (haha) into. In another moment, he decided to go along with it. It felt like the right thing to do, and even if it was sudden and unexpected and in an unorthodox location, gratifying Cecil was something that Carlos found rewarding.

Still looking up at Cecil’s pleading face, Carlos smiled just briefly, before opening his mouth and leaning forward and, finally breaking eye contact so that he could see what he was doing, he wrapped his lips around the end of Cecil’s beautiful, normal, human penis.

He couldn’t see Cecil’s face anymore, but Cecil responded audibly to his actions, and Carlos could perfectly picture the face that Cecil must be making at that moment based on his moan. Cecil’s hand tangled into Carlos’ hair, gently guiding him, making small adjustments to angle and position. Carlos licked at Cecil, running his tongue along every bit of skin he could reach. He tried not to think about the time constraint, as that would undoubtedly just make him nervous and hesitant and less able to bring Cecil to orgasm.

Still, as he sucked, he couldn’t help but imagine that the pressure differential would be sufficient to take down some barrier, releasing a flood of ejaculate that would leave Cecil with just enough time to restore his breathing to normal before going back on the air.

It didn’t happen that way, and Carlos needed to breathe himself. He started to pull off, hoping to check in with Cecil, but the grip in his hair tightened, keeping him in place. He redoubled his efforts. How long had it been? Was the weather _over_ already? Carlos just needed to get Cecil to come, and then he could figure out what was going on.

He started counting the seconds in his head. He wasn’t sure how long he had. Cecil had said less than a minute. Of course, that felt like several minutes ago, but subjective experience of time was notoriously unreliable. As he counted he became more and more concerned. Giving Cecil a lengthy blowjob was just fine by Carlos, but he _had_ to have been doing it for more than 30 seconds already, didn’t he? When he got to 50, it was enough to convince him that something was up. He’d _definitely_ been at it for more than a minute, and besides, the hand in his hair was getting to be too tight. It was actually hurting now. He’d have to tell Cecil to loosen up.

Again, he tried to pull off, and again, the hand in his hair responded by tightening further. This time Carlos actually cried in pain, and wrenched his head into an upright position.

“What the hell?!” He spluttered. “Cecil, I-”

And he stopped short. The man on whom he’d been performing his ministrations was not his Cecil. He looked an awful lot like Cecil, but he smiled like… like someone who’d learned about human expressions from descriptions but had never actually seen another person’s face. And his eyes were completely black.

Cecil had changed appearances several times in the last several hours, but Carlos had always felt that it was still Cecil he was with, just a Cecil that had been altered in some way. This man, despite the obvious similarities to Cecil, felt nothing like him at all.

“Carlos?” Asked this man, “Why did you stop?”

And though the words were the same ones Cecil had used just a few minutes before, they cemented Carlos’ notion that this man was not Cecil, because his voice sounded completely different.

Behind Carlos, another unfamiliar voice spoke. He tried to turn around to see who it was, but the man who wasn’t Cecil held his hair too tightly.

“Has Night Vale’s scientist displeased you, Kevin?”

“He stopped, even though I want him to keep going!” The not-Cecil, who apparently was called Kevin, said to the man behind Carlos.

“Well, we can’t have that. Excuse me, Carlos,” said the man, and the questions _How do you know my name Where am I What’s going on_ ran through Carlos’ head, “But I’d suggest you do what my darling wants of you. I rather think your continued existence depends on it.” Carlos heard a click, and he knew that a gun had made that click, and he didn’t know enough about guns to know whether it was the gun being cocked or the safety being taken off or whatever, but he’d seen enough movies to know it was a _click_ that meant he was one step closer to being shot.

His heart pounded. He didn’t like this Kevin, who, besides demanding sexual attention that Carlos didn’t want to give, looked entirely too much like Cecil and spoke in an unnervingly cheerful manner. Kevin looked at him and grinned and it was the most terrifying thing Carlos had ever seen in his life.

“You heard him,” said Kevin. “Keep going.”

There would be time later to look back on this moment and cry and scream and work through the emotional turmoil, but just then Carlos was being held at gunpoint and he couldn’t afford to feel anything. He took a breath, leaned forward, and…

...Fell to the floor.

He was home. Kevin was gone, and there was no one else in the room, no gun trained on him, and Carlos just collapsed and breathed in great gulps of air for several minutes, taking pleasure in the fact that he was _still alive._ Out of everything he’d experienced in Night Vale, that moment with Kevin grinning down at him and the sound of a gun at his back had been the most harrowing.

Carlos checked his pulse, finding that it was still elevated but within acceptable parameters, and pulled himself off of the floor. _Surely_ he had the dignity to collapse in a heap of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on his bed or the couch.

Before he could make it to an acceptable horizontal surface, there was a gentle knock at his door. “Carlos?” Cecil’s voice called out.

Carlos _really_ didn’t want to deal with Cecil if he was going to be overly amorous like he’d been recently. Recovery from sexual assault is not something that is best handled with additional attempted sexual assault. Still, something made Carlos want to open the door. He knew of certain reasons for doing so: the scientist in him wanted to keep track of any further changes to Cecil’s appearance or behavior; he could use Cecil’s help in figuring out what was going on and stopping it; Cecil probably still had his phone and Carlos still seemed to be missing his own; Carlos was in need of comfort and wanted to see if his boyfriend could provide it. But if he was being honest, none of those reasons were what compelled him to let Cecil in. There was something _other_ at work, and Carlos felt vaguely out of control. He didn’t like that feeling. Too much was out of his control already; he didn’t want to lose his grip on his own behavior as well.

He opened the door, and was immediately swept into a warm, soft hug. “Oh, Carlos, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

Carlos didn’t know how Cecil was aware of what had transpired, but he was glad for the sympathy. Besides, Cecil seemed to be in a relatively chaste mood, so Carlos tentatively returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around Cecil, holding him and being held. Cecil was roughly as tall as he usually was, but somewhat fatter, just enough so that Carlos could feel the difference as they held one another. It was nice, actually, somewhat comforting and relaxing.

Carlos rested his head on Cecil’s shoulder and, without realizing what sound was going to come out of him, began to sob.

“Shh,” said Cecil. “It’s okay, Carlos. I’m here. You’re all right.” Cecil placed a hand on Carlos’ head, gently stroking his hair. Carlos relaxed against him, allowing himself to be led to the couch shortly after.

There, the two curled up together, Cecil holding and comforting Carlos, Carlos relaxing into Cecil’s hold and feeling the fear melt away from him. He was with Cecil. He was safe now.

It took a long time for Carlos to breathe normally again. Every time he tried to take a deep breath, another sob or cry would come out. Trying to stifle them didn’t do any good. Cecil was steadfast, rubbing his shoulders or just supporting him every time he fell back into that state.

“I’ve got you, Carlos. Let it all out. I’m here for you,” Cecil encouraged.

When Carlos finally did calm down, breathing steadily for the first time since opening the door to Cecil, eyes closed and feeling reasonably at peace, Cecil commented, “I’m glad to see you handling this so well.”

For some reason, that stirred something in Carlos. He looked up at Cecil, who had been so kind and supportive and given him just what he needed, and was suddenly aware of just how hot his boyfriend was, and how much physical contact they were currently experiencing.

A part of Carlos reflected that this was undoubtedly not a healthy impulse, so shortly after a sexual assault. He probably needed some sort of treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or at the very least to give himself a little bit of time before engaging in sexual intercourse, because it was almost certainly going to bring up some unpleasant associations for him. But that knowledge felt distant, and more importantly, it felt irrelevant. What _was_ relevant was Cecil, arms around Carlos so comfortable and warm, and other parts of his body that were no doubt even _more_ comfortable and warm.

“I’ll show you just how well I can handle this,” said Carlos, smirking, though didn’t know why he said it.

What he did know was that Cecil readily accepted the embrace of Carlos’ lips, Carlos’ teeth, Carlos’ tongue, and then Carlos was standing up because he was going to have to take his clothes off anyway so he might as well put on a show for Cecil.

A moment later, putting on a show for Cecil seemed to be precisely what Carlos was doing.

He was on some sort of stage, and Cecil was right in front of him, though Cecil was far from the only audience member present. Oddly, this didn’t bother Carlos at all. He could see Steve Carlsberg off in a corner, looking very much like he wanted to be closer to the stage, but to a lesser degree than he wanted to stay away from Cecil. A group of quintuplets were staring with shockingly polychromatic eyes.

Leann Hart was scribbling in a notebook and looking at him appraisingly, and Dana (who, to the best of Carlos’ recent knowledge, should still have been lost in whatever time and place she’d ended up after the Dog Park) kept glancing at him when she wasn’t handing out drinks.

Carlos stood before this impressive crowd, and realized that he was hardly wearing any clothes.

He had on his ubiquitous labcoat, and some ridiculously small pair of underwear that he was certain left _nothing_ to the imagination, and he felt perfectly comfortable. There was a garment of some sort in his hand, which he tossed over his shoulder. The crowd cheered.

Music had been playing in the background, nearly drowned out by the roar of the audience, but now the volume began to increase, the pace to pick up, and before he had a chance to give any thought to what he was doing, Carlos began to dance.

There was a table toward the back of the stage, supporting a rack of test tubes. Carlos picked one up, in time to the music, and combined its contents with that of another one. The liquid, formerly clear, began to glow a bright purple. The luminosity was difficult to detect, with the bright lights on the stage, but the color was definitely noticeable. A cheer from the audience greeted this transformation.

Treating the test tube like a baton, Carlos carried it back towards the audience, placing it carefully (but purposefully and still in time to the music) in a holder near the front of the stage.

He repeated the process with more test tubes, creating blue, pink, and green glows and placing them in holders at different heights and different locations, until he stood in the middle of them all, struck a pose, and the lights went out.

_Now_ the luminosity was detectable, as Carlos was visible only by the colorful lights of those test tubes. This was showmanship, not science, but Carlos still felt like he knew what he was doing, and more, he was enjoying it.

Until the glowing test tubes disappeared, replaced by the light of a street lamp streaming through a window left open for the sake of the Sheriff’s Secret Police. Carlos was standing in his own bedroom, the one he so often shared with Cecil, and he suddenly felt very silly as he stood in a ridiculous pose in his own home. His clothes remained unchanged.

“Carlos,” called out Cecil’s voice, and as Carlos’ eyes adjusted he recognized the shape on his bed as his boyfriend. “Are you going to join me or are you just going to stand there showing off your ridiculously handsome physique all night?”

“Um.” Carlos was conflicted. Not about the false dilemma Cecil had placed before him; he had no interest in standing on display in front of his bedroom window. But, as tempting as it was to crawl into bed with Cecil… and he did mean crawl, approaching on all fours as he stalked across the bed, fixing Cecil with a hungry gaze, knowing full well how sexy he looked wearing his lab coat and precious little else…

But, in a muddled, confused way, Carlos thought that he didn’t really do that sort of thing. He didn’t wear his labcoat like a focus for a scientist fetish, he didn’t _perform,_ he didn’t behave like some kind of sex object. That wasn’t who he was.

At the same time, he thought that maybe it could be. And furthermore, he thought that maybe he _wanted_ it to be.

His indecision was interrupted by the sound of his ringtone. It snapped him out of his revery, and he fumbled toward the noise in the darkened room. His phone blared and buzzed under a discarded tie on the bedside table. Lucy was calling.

“Lucy? What’s going on?” Carlos perched on the edge of the bed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cecil sit up.

“Um, I think it’d be easier to explain in person. Can you come to the lab?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I hope so. I haven’t exactly had a lot of control over the places I’ve been lately.”

“Well, I’m thinking maybe it’ll be easier now. If I’m correct. Which I might not be. But I think I am.”

“Okay, I’ll be right over.” He hung up, turning to tell Cecil that he’d be gone a while.

“What is it, Carlos?” Cecil beat him to the punch.

“Oh, something at the lab. It sounded pretty urgent.”

Cecil brought a hand up to Carlos’ neck, touching him softly. “I’ve got something pretty urgent for you right here, Carlos. And you spend a lot less time in me than you do in the lab. I hardly think that’s fair.”

Carlos mentally corrected Cecil’s phrase to “with me” before he realized that Cecil may have said precisely what he meant.

“I know, Cecil. And I’m sorry. I promise I’ll make it up to you when I get home, okay?” He was lying through his teeth. When he got home, if all went well, Cecil would have reverted to the understanding and patient boyfriend that Carlos needed if he was going to get over everything that had been happening. “I have to go now.”

He started to walk out of the bedroom. Cecil called after him. “As much as I’d love to show you off to the rest of Night Vale, I hope you’re going to remember to put some pants on.”

_Oh god._ Carlos had actually forgotten, for a moment, just how undressed he was. He’d wanted to get away from Cecil, to avoid awkward conversations or getting pulled into a passionate embrace and forgetting what he was supposed to be doing or even telling Cecil the real reason behind his late-night visit to the lab. He turned around, opened some drawers and pulled out one of his flannel shirts and a pair of jeans. The shirt buttons may not have been perfectly lined up by the time he stalked out to his car, but at least he didn’t think he’d be violating any public decency laws. The only one allowed to be nude in public view was Marcus Vansten, who had earned that privilege by virtue of his vast reserves of wealth.

Carlos was surprised to find Lucy walking away from the lab. He sprung out of his car in his effort to catch her before she got too far.

“Hey! Where are you going?” He called.

She turned around. “I have to get home. Erika’s looking after Champ, and it’s not like I don’t trust them, but-”

“Oh.” Carlos interrupted her, out of breath. “I’m sorry, Judy. I thought you were your sister.”

“Ah. I see,” said Cactus Judy. “No, she’s still in there. “

“Okay. Thanks. Um, have a good night.”

“You too, Carlos.” Judy flashed him a grin before she turned around and continued home. It was the sort of grin that, had Carlos the slightest bit of interest in women, would have left him quite flustered.

Inside the lab, Lucy was monitoring the printer as it spat out sheet after sheet of text.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” she said when she saw Carlos. “I think I have the solution to your problem.”

“What is it?”

She gestured to the printer. “I found it.”

Carlos looked at her skeptically. “Found what?”

“The story. The one you’re trapped in.”

“I… thought there were multiple stories and I was traveling between them.”

“Um… sort of,” said Lucy. She picked up the first sheet of paper and showed it to Carlos.

_“Cecil,” said Carlos, pushing the other’s shoulders to gain enough distance to talk. “What’s going… oh.”_

_Carlos noticed a variety of things all at once. Cecil was_ different, _in lots of ways._

It was like that first piece of fanfic Lucy had shown him, but in this one, instead of having sex in the kitchen, they went to the lab. Just like they’d done in reality.

“I… don’t understand.” Said Carlos.

Lucy explained. “Okay, so when you first noticed a problem, it seemed like Cecil was being affected by the fanfic I was reading. _Any_ fanfic I was reading, not just that one. And you were… not affected the same way he was, but partially affected.

“Only, I don’t think it’s just you and Cecil. I think it’s affecting _all_ of us. And it’s all just this one story, by someone who calls themselves Tied Forty-Third. I’m in it too, and it has me reading all these other stories, the ones you’ve been appearing in. I’m pretty sure you’re not experiencing those actual stories, just the versions that have been coopted into this one fic.”

“Wait, so… this is all a play-within-a-play type thing?”

Lucy nodded. “Basically. I mean, I think these are all real fics, but this author pulled them all into one larger plot where they appear as fics… It’s pretty damn pretentious, if you ask me.”

“So what do we do?” Asked Carlos.

The printer shot out the last page, and Lucy handed it to him. “I’ll let you read it for yourself.”

Carlos took the sheet and read its contents.

_Carlos put the manuscript on the ceramic tray, struck a match, and carefully ignited the paper. It began to curl and blacken. Smoke rose into the air, ashy particulates lifting away from the charring document even as Carlos felt some external influence lifting away from his mind. He looked to Cecil, who looked back at him with an expression of mild confusion, but tempered with a small, fond, smile. For the first time since they’d been washing dishes, Carlos felt like he was looking at the man he’d fallen in love with._

_When the flames died out, the last of the paper crumpling into a blackened mass, Carlos took Cecil’s hand. “Let’s go home,” he said. “I think we could both do with a good night’s sleep.”_

There was nothing else.

“So,” said Carlos, “You want me to burn the story? That will somehow… undo all of this?”

“I think you’re _going_ to burn the story, whether anyone wants you to or not. But… yeah, I think it will fix things. Either we just have to get to the end of the story and everything goes back to normal, _or,_ we don’t really escape the story, but it says that things go back to normal, so they do. Doesn’t really matter which one happens, so long as we get to go back to how things were, right?”

“I guess,” Carlos admitted. “But, um, this says that I look at Cecil while I burn it. I assume we have to follow the text to the letter, so should I go get him, or-”

The door to the lab burst open, revealing the very man of whom Carlos spoke.

“Cecil!” Carlos exclaimed, as his boyfriend ran toward him, leaving the door wide open in his wake. Unable to refrain from stating the obvious, he added, “You’re here!”

“You left me alone,” said Cecil, apparently sharing Carlos’ obvious-stating compulsion. “In quite a state of distress, I might add.” Ignoring Lucy’s presence, Cecil ran forward to embrace Carlos. He kissed Carlos’ jaw, purring his name.

“Cecil, I’m sorry, but if you can wait just a few minAAH!” Carlos yelped, jumping back as he felt something squirm between himself and Cecil.

He looked down to where he had felt whatever thing had intruded upon Cecil’s embrace, seeing nothing unusual at first glance. “I’m sorry, I thought there was something…” He trailed off from his apology, which had been prompted by Cecil’s unbearably pained expression, when his peripheral vision caught movement.

What looked initially like an ordinary sign of male arousal, which Carlos had been politely ignoring, proved to be something of a shifting, writhing mass. _Oh great, tentacles again,_ he thought dismissively.

“See how much I need you?” Said Cecil, stepping forward to close the gap that Carlos had put between them.

Realizing that he’d been staring, Carlos tore himself away from Cecil’s groin and met his eyes. Those eyes, at this point, were almost entirely black. Carlos felt that he could see the Void in those eyes, that he could fall into them if he wasn’t careful, and the thought was unsettlingly enticing.

Cecil’s hand was under Carlos’ chin, pulling him towards a kiss, and it took a great deal of effort for Carlos to pull himself away.

“Cecil.” Carlos put his hand on Cecil’s cheek, gently holding his head where it was. “I need you to listen to me. This is important.”

“What is it, Carlos?”

“Lucy and I have to do Science,” Carlos said, putting emphasis on the word “science” to make it sound as awe-inducing as Cecil usually seemed to think it was. “After we’re done, I can take you home and take care of you just like you want me to.” At this, Cecil’s pleading face resolved into a hopeful smile. “But we can’t do the experiment alone. We need an observer. Would you like to help us, Cecil? Your assistance would be invaluable.”

“ _Anything_ for the scientific community,” Cecil immediately responded.

“Good. Okay, I need you to stay right there. Can you do that for me?”

“Of course!” Cecil sounded almost offended.

Carlos kissed him on the cheek. “Because I’m not going to be able to stand here with you. I’ll need to walk around the lab a little bit to do the experiment. Sure you’ll be okay without me?”

Cecil blushed where Carlos had kissed him… a mauve shade, far more purplish than the few occasions when Carlos had seen Cecil blush before the incident in the kitchen. The black in his eyes expanded, until there was no longer any white visible. “You won’t go too far?” He asked.

“Of course not. I’ll stay in this room the entire time. I’ll never be out of your sight.” Carlos didn’t want to leave Cecil, anyway. He wanted to stay in his arms and stare into the depths of those black eyes. Some part of him remembered that things were supposed to be different, but he just wanted to do what needed to be done before returning to Cecil and entangling their bodies until they were as good as one.

A moment of clarity hit him, and he said, “Lucy? I’m starting to be affected again. I don’t know how much longer I can control myself.”

“I just need to make sure all of the pages are here,” she replied. “Why don’t you get things ready in the fume hood and I’ll bring the manuscript to you in a moment?”

Carlos nodded, gathering a ceramic tray and a box of matches and carrying them to the fume hood.

“I’ll try,” said Cecil, startling Carlos into nearly dropping the ceramic tray.

“What?” Asked Carlos, putting down the tray and matches.

“I’ll try to stay right here. Even though you’re several unbearable feet away from me and I want nothing more than to gather you to my form and bury my hands in your luscious hair.”

“Ah.” Said Carlos. He stood where he was, just in front of the fume hood, looking at Cecil, wondering why he had wanted to put such an inexorable distance between them. Cecil was on the other side of a lab bench, and Carlos hated that piece of furniture for the portion of Cecil it blocked from view.

“Carlos!”

Lucy was in front of him, shoving a stack of papers into his face.

“Wh… what’s this?” Asked Carlos.

Lucy gave him a stern look. “It doesn’t matter. Just burn it.” She pointed at the fume hood. Carlos turned, eyes following the line of her finger.

“O…kaay…” Said Carlos, taking the stack of papers. He read a bit of the first page.

_The Tyranny of Headcanons  
Tied43rd_

_Carlos began humming to himself while he washed dishes, completely unselfconscious despite the presence of an audience. He’d finally gotten comfortable enough around Cecil to stop constantly monitoring his own behavior to provide the best view of himself that he could._

_Cecil, standing beside him and drying the dishes as Carlos handed them over, started humming along, improvising an elegant counterpoint, probably without even being aware he was doing it..._

The scene described felt familiar, for some reason. It felt like reading an old diary entry, though Carlos had never kept a diary, and if he had, he wouldn’t have written it in the third person. “Why am I burning this?” He asked.

Lucy sighed. “Because after you’ve done that, I’ll leave and you and Cecil can be alone together, okay?”

“Oh.” Carlos _did_ like the sound of being alone with Cecil. And he trusted Lucy’s judgement; she was much smarter than him, after all. If she said that this document had to be burned, then Carlos would burn it.

Carlos put the manuscript on the ceramic tray, struck a match, and carefully ignited the paper. It began to curl and blacken. Smoke rose into the air, ashy particulates lifting away from the charring document even as Carlos felt some external influence lifting away from his mind. He looked to Cecil, who looked back at him with an expression of mild confusion, but tempered with a small, fond, smile. For the first time since they’d been washing dishes, Carlos felt like he was looking at the man he’d fallen in love with.

When the flames died out, the last of the paper crumpling into a blackened mass, Carlos took Cecil’s hand. “Let’s go home,” he said. “I think we could both do with a good night’s sleep.”

Cecil’s hand felt comfortable in his, not clinging or demanding, just resting in a gesture of connection. “Did I do a good job?” Asked Cecil. “Observing your science? I’ve never been part of a scientific experiment before; I hope I did it right.”

“You did it _exactly_ right,” affirmed Carlos.

“Oh, good.”

On the way out the door, Carlos turned to address Lucy. “We’ll have to have a discussion tomorrow regarding appropriate behavior regarding coworkers and acquaintances. Just because I need to get to sleep doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

“Hey!” Protested Lucy. “I’m the one who got you out of this mess!”

“And there’s a very good chance that you’re the one who got us _into_ this mess.” Carlos saw Cecil yawning beside him. “But that can wait ‘til tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Lucy sighed. “Sure. Goodnight, you two.”

“Goodnight, Lucy!” Cecil waved to her as he and Carlos went out the door.

Cecil’s car wasn’t in the lab parking lot. Carlos didn’t know how Cecil had managed to get to the lab, and while his scientist’s curiosity compelled him to seek out the answer, his experiences in Night Vale had forced him to accept that some things just weren’t meant to be questioned.

Cecil climbed into Carlos’ car, and the scientist drove them home. The drive was as easy as it ever was in Night Vale. Carlos made sure to follow the instructions of the semaphore flag wielders, and there were very few ghost cars out that night.

As he climbed under the covers, Carlos said, “Is it okay with you if we just go right to sleep? It’s been a really long day, and I’m totally exhausted.”

“Of course,” said Cecil, snuggling in next to him. “Was the Science very difficult today?”

“The science was _so_ difficult today,” Carlos confirmed, letting his eyes fall shut. He felt Cecil press a gentle kiss to his forehead.

“Goodnight, Carlos,” said Cecil. “Goodnight.”

Carlos didn’t fall asleep immediately. He was tired, but his mind still raced with thoughts and hypotheses and worries and trauma and after several minutes the position he was in became uncomfortable, so he turned over to face away from Cecil. Cuddling, while nice, was not always practical when it came to falling asleep.

Often, as was happening that night, Carlos would drift back and forth between wakefulness and dreams, aware of the position and motion of his body only as an abstract concept, forgetting he even had limbs until jerking one of them in response to a half-formed dream jolted him back awake.

Unusually, tonight, Carlos was jolted awake not by the motion of his own limbs, but by the sound of sobbing.

“Cecil?” He croaked, wakefulness bringing with it only a delayed awareness of his throat.

“Oh!” The sobs halted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Cecil’s voice quavered.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t even totally asleep yet.”

“You’ve had a hard day. You need your sleep,” insisted Cecil.

Carlos sat up and wrapped his arms around Cecil. “Well you need your boyfriend. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Cecil burrowed into Carlos’ embrace. He took a deep, shaky breath, and for a moment Carlos thought he was going to start sobbing again. Instead, he spoke.

“It’s just that… you deserve, you know, _things…_ that I just can’t give you,” he said, so quietly, so hesitantly, that Carlos could barely make out the words. “But I just… I mean, you’re _so perfect,_ but even so, I… It’s just not...”

Now there were more sobs.

“Cecil, I’m so sorry, honey…” Carlos didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand what Cecil was talking about, and he was too tired to make sense of anything complicated, and Cecil was in distress and Carlos had no idea how to console him.

Finally, Cecil flung his arms around Carlos’ neck and said, “After Steve… you know, after what he did to me, I… I just can’t bring myself to do it!”


	2. Night Vale Citizens Ranked According to Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on chronology: The frame story is set sometime between "Numbers" and "Visitor." Therefore, all the fanworks that Carlos encounters will have been written only with knowledge that was available to fans at that point. I don't know if I kept everything TOTALLY consistent with that time frame, but I tried.
> 
> Also, a warning: Like the previous chapter, this chapter contains one illustration. This illustration contains nudity, so be aware of that if you're in a place where there might be people behind you glancing curiously at your screen.

“‘What Steve did to you’? Cecil, I don’t understand. What did Steve do?”

Carlos ran his hands over Cecil’s back, trying to provide some reassurance.

Cecil just stared into Carlos’ eyes, looking so broken and hopeless that Carlos could barely stand it.

“I thought you knew,” Cecil whispered.

“Knew what?”

“About my history. About Steve’s history… of…” Cecil looked away, now avoiding eye contact entirely. “...Of raping me.”

Carlos’ world went cold. His body froze while his mind raced, trying to put things together and figure out what the correct reaction was to hearing this kind of revelation from a boyfriend, and all he managed to say was “What.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cecil. “I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like this.”

“Oh, Cecil.” Carlos held his boyfriend tightly. “Don’t ever apologize. I want you to _always_ feel safe with me.” He reached up with one hand, gently holding Cecil’s head against his chest. He was a scientist, and he yearned for understanding, but Cecil’s wellbeing came first. “Steve’s a jerk, but I never thought he’d be capable of… of… something like that.”

He hesitated to use the word “rape,” out of shock, if he was being kind to himself, or cowardice, if he was being cruel.

“Carlos,” said Cecil, his voice hard, the broken vulnerability of his confession gone, “You have no idea what that monster is capable of.”

Carlos’ arms tightened further around Cecil. It was the only gesture he could think to make. “Oh god,” he said. “Cecil, I… I had no idea. Please, if there’s anything… I don’t know what to do for you, what you need from me, but I’ll… I’m here for you. Whatever I can do, I’ll do it.”

Cecil chuckled into Carlos’ shoulder. “Thanks. I… I don’t know, what you can do either, but if I think of anything I’ll let you know.”

“I can’t believe I never realized,” said Carlos, still processing this new information about Cecil. “To go through something like that… And from someone so close to you… My god, to deal with having your aggressor as your brother-in-law, that must be  _awful_ …”

“That man,” Cecil said, hardness creeping into his voice again, “is not a member of my family.”

“Of course,” said Carlos. “Of course he’s not. Oh, Cecil. I’m so sorry that that happened to you. I… I just wish I could hold you forever and stop anyone from ever hurting you.”

“Sounds nice,” muttered Cecil.

“I mean it,” said Carlos.

Cecil reached up with one hand and tangled his fingers into Carlos’ raven locks. “Carlos,” he said. “My Carlos. You’re so wonderful. So perfect.” He lifted his head from where it had been resting against Carlos. He looked, and sounded, much calmer than he’d been a few minutes before. “I love you,” he added, staring directly into Carlos’ eyes.

“I love you, too,” Carlos responded, almost automatically but with complete sincerity.

Cecil looked down again. “You shouldn’t,” he said. “I’m not good enough for you.”

“Cecil-”

“ _Carlos_.” Cecil spoke so forcefully that Carlos couldn’t help but shut his mouth. “You deserve someone…” he trailed off, gently pulling his fingers through Carlos’ hair. “...Well, you deserve someone you can… can make love to.” Cecil’s eyes remained downcast, entirely missing the bewilderment that overtook Carlos’ features.

“I’m sorry, Cecil, I’m confused. What is it, exactly, that separates  _making love_ from anything we’ve already done?”

Cecil chuckled, in a way that sounded defeated rather than mirthful. “Oh, Carlos. You’re so sweet. But you don’t have to pretend. I know that eventually you’re going to get tired of cuddling. You’ll want more. Probably you already do. And I… it hurts, but I’m doing the best I can to be  _okay_ with that.”

“I  _really_ don’t understand,” said Carlos. Cecil wasn’t making any sense. It reminded Carlos of earlier, when Cecil had said something about it being their first time, though they’d already had sex on multiple occasions. Of course, that was when they were trapped in a piece of fan fiction…  _oh_ . “You’re not yourself, Cecil.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“I mean… heh.” A thought struck Carlos, another piece falling into place. “Hey, uh, earlier, when you said Steve Carlsberg isn’t a member of your family… do you mean he’s  _not_ Janice’s stepfather?”

It was Cecil’s turn to look bewildered. “Now  _I’m_ confused,” he said.

Carlos pressed on, regardless. “Of course. I should’ve realized. The man who raped you, raising your niece? No way you’d just sit back and let that happen.”

“My niece? Carlos, you’re not making any sense!”

“Oh good. I guess we’re even, now.”

Tears started to run down Cecil’s cheeks. “It’s happening, isn’t it? You’re realizing that you don’t want me, because I’m damaged. You’re pushing me away.”

Carlos sighed. “That’s not it, Cecil. I just… I thought I had you back, finally, but I don’t. You’re not… This isn’t you.”

“How can you say such things? Carlos, I… I want to be yours. Please, let me try… I trust you; I know you won’t hurt me. Let me be what you need.” Face still wet with tears, Cecil lunged forward, pressing his mouth against Carlos’ desperately. Carlos grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back.

“Cecil, you don’t have to… This isn’t what I want.”

“You don’t have to lie, Carlos. I know what you really feel.” Cecil’s hands caressed Carlos’ face, then descended, brushing against the fabric of his shirt. When Cecil reached the hem of Carlos’ pants, Carlos caught his wrists.

“No! Cecil, stop!”

“Why won’t you let me do this for you?” Cecil whined. “Can’t you see how hard I’m trying?”

Carlos sighed. “Cecil, if you have a history of trauma, you should know how important it is not to rush forward when one party isn’t ready. Maybe you want this right now, but if I don’t want it at the same time you do, then we should wait until both of us want it. That makes sense, right?”

“I… guess so?” Cecil said, hesitant. “But… why wouldn’t you want it now?”

“Not everyone wants sex all the time. People have boundaries, and you need to respect them, even if they don’t make sense to you, all right?”

Cecil nodded. “All right,” he said, his voice flat.

“And…” Carlos paused, considering whether he really wanted to say what he was about to. He decided it would be better to get it off his chest. “I was recently sexually assaulted, myself.”

“Oh, Carlos!” Cecil flung his arms around his boyfriend, hugging him tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because… because I had a lot of stuff to deal with, and I was stressed out and I didn’t know how I felt about it, and then I was exhausted. And all I wanted to do was get some sleep, with my caring, supportive, respectful boyfriend beside me.”

“And then I ruined it,” Cecil muttered despondently.

“Shush. It’s not your fault,” said Carlos. It really wasn’t. Cecil had little to no control over his actions and personality of late, and probably wouldn’t remember any of this in a moment. “Now, do you think you can try to get to sleep? We can talk more in the morning.”

“Okay. And then when you’re ready… when we’re both ready, I mean, we can have sex and everything will get better?”

An exasperated noise escaped from Carlos’ throat. “Cecil, I’m not going to say that we shouldn’t ever have sex, or that it couldn’t be a positive step toward both our recoveries, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to put too much pressure on the idea. Sex cannot magically heal someone from past trauma.”

“My goodness, Carlos! What brought on this revelation?”

Carlos was no longer at home, in bed with Cecil. It was no longer dark. He and Cecil were standing on a path under the trees in Mission Grove Park.

“Um, sorry,” he said, “I was thinking aloud. How much did you hear?”

“Just a shockingly direct denial of the restorative properties of a particular physical act.”

“Ah. Yeah, that… probably didn’t make much sense to you out of context. Just forget I said anything, okay?”

“Consider it forgotten.”

Cecil was dressed formally, with suspenders forming neat lines on either side of his shirt buttons, and a bow tie in place of his usual standard necktie. His hair was swept back from his face, held stiffly in place by a vast amount of some product or another.

Carlos, meanwhile, found himself yet again wearing a labcoat. This one was particularly thick and heavy, and it weighed on him uncomfortably in the desert heat. As he took stock of his situation, he noticed Cecil staring at him intently.

“You’re somewhat askance,” said Cecil, pointing at Carlos’ shirt collar, where Carlos also sported a bowtie. “May I?”

“Of course,” said Carlos. Cecil reached forward with both hands, and gently adjusted the fabric until it was properly straightened. Carlos smiled warmly at the gesture, and Cecil let out a nervous laugh.

“Good as new.” Cecil’s fingers brushed against Carlos’ cheek before he removed his hand. “So,” he said, facing away from Carlos and taking a step forward, “Back to our discussion.”

“Our discussion?” Carlos walked alongside Cecil. His mind was racing with questions, about why Lucy’s plan to help him hadn’t worked, and what was causing all this, and if there was anything at all he could do about it. More data would have to be collected. For the moment, Carlos settled on just playing along with whatever role he was supposed to be inhabiting.

“About the war.”

“Oh.” The war against the tiny underground civilization? Or against Strex? Or one of the other innumerable wars that Night Vale had been involved in since Carlos had arrived? “Which war would that be, exactly?”

Cecil halted, staring wide-eyed at Carlos. “Are you quite ill? The- the war! The second war of all the nations of the world!”

“It… the second… this is… World War Two?”

“Well I suppose you could put it that way, yes. Have you contracted sudden-onset amnesia?” Cecil put the back of his hand against Carlos’ forehead. “You don’t feel feverish. Perhaps you should sit down?”

He led Carlos to a bench, not holding his hand or arm but merely lightly touching his elbow, and sitting with enough space between them that they weren’t making any physical contact at all. The bench was in a secluded alcove, roughly as private a location as you could get in a place like Night Vale.

“Do you remember who the President is?” Asked Cecil.

“Um…” Carlos thought back on what he knew about 20th-century history, and hoped he got the timing right. “Franklin Roosevelt?”

Cecil sighed in relief. “Good. That means you’re not too far gone. A few minutes of rest and it should all come back to you.”

“Right.” Carlos nodded. “Roosevelt’s in office, we’re at war, and it’s… what year is it?”

“1943,” said Cecil, gently.

“Uh-huh. 1943. I think it’s coming back to me, now,” Carlos lied. “And we were talking about the war, which is currently being fought in Europe and Asia, while we’re relatively safe here in Night Vale. Correct?”

“Correct.” Cecil smiled. “You told me about how you’re working on some very important but sadly classified science, and I was just about to tell you what happened when I was called in for the draft.”

“What happened?”

Cecil looked down, an embarrassed expression on his face. “I failed my medical.”

“Oh, really? What’s wrong with you?” Asked Carlos.

“Well,  _physically_ I’m fine, but they found me…  _mentally unfit_ for combat. And…” Cecil started fidgeting as he spoke. “Since we’re becoming friends, I think it would be only right to inform you, before you get too close to me, because I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, or wind up in a situation that you’d consider at all morally degrading, and I don’t want to think of you in a way that would upset you but it’s not something I’ve ever been able to help; it’s just the way I am, and there might be a way to cure me but nothing so far has made any difference…”

“Cecil, you’re babbling. It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“All right.” Cecil took a deep breath, and said, “They diagnosed me as homosexual.”

Carlos waited for Cecil to say something more. When no further information seemed forthcoming, he asked, “And?”

“What more do you… oh.” Cecil looked at Carlos, a worried expression on his face. “You might not… it’s a term that means… well, essentially, though it pains me to admit it, Carlos, I’m a pervert.”

“I’m sorry Cecil, I…  _oh_ . It’s… Don’t Ask Don’t Tell hasn’t been repealed yet, has it? Oh, wait, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell probably doesn’t even  _exist_ yet. I’m sorry you were excluded, Cecil. Although, I have to say I’m not sorry that you’re out of danger. The thought of you getting killed somewhere overseas is… it’s hard to take.”

“Carl _oos_ .” Cecil leaned his head back, covering his face with his hands for a moment before he continued. “You don’t know the worst part of it.”

“So tell me.”

“I don’t want to impugn your honor,” said Cecil, which sounded more like something you’d hear in medieval times than the 1940s, but Carlos wasn’t that big on history, and lately his life hadn’t been big on consistency. “But whenever I spend time with you… I can’t help but feel an… an attraction for you. And I value your friendship more than anything,” he added, looking Carlos straight in the eye, “But I can’t in good conscience allow that friendship to continue under false pretenses. That said, I’ll… I’ll understand if you choose to no longer associate with me.”

Carlos’ eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “Cecil, you’ve been in love with me since the day I arrived in Night Vale.”

“Oh dear lord! You  _knew_ ?”

“Yes I…” Carlos was about to remind Cecil that he’d declared his love publicly from the beginning, but he remembered his newfound setting, and adjusted his approach. He wrapped his arms around Cecil and pulled him into a hug. Cecil stiffened, at first, but after a moment he relaxed and rested his head on Carlos’ shoulder. “I am so  _sorry_ that you’ve been taught there’s something wrong with you. You are beautiful, Cecil, and perfect just the way you are. I hope you’ll be able to accept that about yourself in time.” And then, contemporary attitudes be damned, Carlos lifted Cecil’s chin and kissed him.

Again, the setting changed.

Carlos was still kissing Cecil, but they were at home, it was nighttime once more, and neither one of them was wearing a stitch of clothing. Cecil lowered Carlos onto the bed, covering Carlos’ form with his own, maximizing the amount of surface area that could come into contact between the two of them. Carlos ran his hands down Cecil’s sides, not wanting to worry about how he got into this situation when he could just relax and enjoy it as it happened.

Cecil broke the kiss, moaning and arching his back and spreading his wings behind him. Carlos observed, as well as he could in the dim, ethereal light, the feathery protrusions that fluttered behind Cecil. He reached up to touch one of them and Cecil gasped, looking at Carlos with a wonder that he hadn’t seen since their first date. Cecil leaned down, mouth parted…

...and disappeared.

Carlos was standing, now, and Cecil hadn’t gone away entirely, but was sitting in bed. There was a towel wrapped around Carlos’ waist, which he guessed was close enough to wearing actual clothes. His hair was heavy and, judging by the tickling sensation traversing his back, dripping wet.

Cecil, meanwhile, was dressed in his work clothes, and huddled at the corner of the bed.

“Cecil? You okay?” Carlos took a step forward, but Cecil thrust out a hand, gesturing to stop.

“Stay away!” Shouted Cecil. “I don’t know if it’s contagious!”

“Why… what’s wrong? Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t know. It’s worse when I look at you, somehow.” Cecil drew himself inward, folding his legs close to his chest. “It’s like a… constriction, or a tension, throughout my entire body.”

Repeatedly seeing Cecil in varying types of distress was definitely the worst thing about Carlos’ recent adventures. “Let me examine you. I’m a scientist. And if it is contagious, there’s a good chance I’ve already been infected and I’ll just have to find a way to cure both of us, all right?”

Cecil nodded, and whimpered. “All right.”

Carlos climbed next to Cecil on the bed and held the back of his hand to Cecil’s forehead. “Do you have a thermometer?”

“No.”

“That’s a shame.” Cecil’s skin didn’t feel unusually warm, but Carlos wasn’t confident in his ability to assess temperature. He removed his hand and pressed his lips against Cecil’s skin instead. Even according to the most temperature-sensitive bodypart Carlos had available, Cecil was only perhaps slightly warmer than was normal. “I’d like to get a proper temperature reading, but I don’t think you have a fever.”

Carlos took Cecil’s wrist in hand, the one that bore his one-month anniversary gift, the one true timepiece in all of Night Vale. While the watch counted out seconds, Carlos counted the beats of Cecil’s heart. “Your heartrate is significantly elevated,” he informed Cecil. “It might be a good idea to get you to my lab. We have thermometers and pressure cuffs there, and we could run some tests to figure out exactly what’s wrong with you. Sound good?”

“I don’t know, Carlos. I don’t really think it’s a good idea for me to try to walk right now.”

“I can carry you to the car, if you’re too weak to stand. I should get dressed before we leave, though… Now, where are my clothes?”

Carlos turned to look around the room that wasn’t  _quite_ the bedroom he was used to. Cecil reached out and caught his shoulder. “Please, I don’t want to go to the lab. I want to stay here.”

“Cecil, I want to help you.” Carlos cupped Cecil’s cheek in his palm. “I want to understand what’s wrong with you so I can fix it.”

Cecil looked down. “I know, but it’s… this is embarrassing.”

“What is? It’s okay, darling, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Cecil put his own hand over Carlos’, and took a deep breath. “Okay. There’s… um, there’s another symptom. Um, swelling. In a… in an embarrassing location.”

Carlos stroked Cecil’s cheek with his thumb. “Can you show me?”

Cecil nodded, and unfolded his legs, revealing a familiar bulge in the front of his pants.

“Okay. Is there anything besides your erection that’s causing you concern?”

“B-besides my… um…”

“It’s okay, Cecil, we’re both adults. We can talk about to each other about our erections… Oh! Are you embarrassed because you think you shouldn’t be aroused when you’re feeling ill? Because if that’s the case, don’t worry, our bodies react to all sorts of stimula, sometimes in manners that might seem inappropriate or unwanted, but if your mind is at odds with what your body is feeling that’s okay too, it just means-”

“Wait! Carlos, are you saying this…” He gestured downwards, “...Is normal? It’s not some sudden and mysterious ailment that’s going to kill me and devastate those I love?”

Carlos blinked. “I’m sorry Cecil, is… is that what was bothering you? There’s nothing… else, going on?”

Cecil shook his head. “Just that. I thought… I thought I was dying.”

“Why?” Carlos asked, bewildered. “You’ve been in this situation plenty of times before…” He trailed off. It was difficult to think, to remember who he was and where he’d come from and all the things he’d gone through. “Oh.  _Oh._ I forgot; you’re still not you. This is a… a gimmick. Someone’s idea of a fun story, to make you as… as virginal as it’s possible to be, to the point that you don’t even recognize sexual arousal for what it is.”

“You said you would help me,” said Cecil. “Please, Carlos. What do I do with this feeling?” He brought Carlos’ hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Is there any way to make it better?”

Carefully, Carlos extricated his hand from Cecil’s grasp. “I’m sorry, Cecil. I just… can’t deal with this right now.” He sat next to Cecil on the bed, leaning against the wall. He was lost, with no idea how to make things better. Lucy’s hypothesis had been incorrect and Carlos couldn’t conceive of another way to fix things. He felt helpless, powerless, and so alone. Cecil may have been sitting right there, but Carlos had no way to reach him.

A tear dripped down Carlos’ cheek as he considered the life he’d lost, to which he may never return. To be sure, it was terrifying at times, but loving Cecil and being loved was worth all the pain and suffering in Night Vale. “I don’t know what to  _do_ ,” Carlos said. “I’ve always been able to find a way out, to solve the problem and get out alive, and on good days I even manage to get other people out alive as well, but… I can’t make it work this time. There’s no pattern; the data doesn’t make any sense and I’m just… stuck.”

Cecil’s arm curled around Carlos’ shoulders. “There, there, Carlos,” said that warm, comforting voice. “I’m here. You can be terrified by the unpredictable brutality of existence as long as you need.”

Carlos squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t know what changes might have occurred while he was speaking, but Cecil was talking like himself at least, and Carlos didn’t want to ruin the illusion while he was still vulnerable.

He leaned into Cecil’s embrace, taking a few moments to just feel the other man’s presence. “There was a time,” said Carlos, “When I thought that all the seemingly strange and malevolent things in the world were actually pure, and innocent. I still  _want_ to think that, but now… I’m having a hard time thinking that my life is the result of anything other than malice.”

Cecil squeezed Carlos’ shoulder. “I’m sorry it seems that way,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you. Other than that I love you. And I’m here for you.”

Carlos laughed, because it was preferable to crying.

Cecil shifted, moving his head toward Carlos’ a little too fast. His chin bumped the side of Carlos’ head.

“Ow!” Said Carlos, pulling back and opening his eyes again. “Careful, there. Are you o...kay?” He stared at Cecil from a few inches away, looking straight into a pair of milky white eyes. A shadow of an iris was just barely visible in each one, a slightly darker shade of white than the sclera.

“I’m so sorry, Carlos! Here I am trying to comfort you, and I go banging into you like an idiot. No  _wonder_ you think the world is full of malice.”

Carlos rubbed the spot where Cecil had knocked into him. “Don’t worry about it, Cecil. It’s okay. It’s… um… are you… blind?”

“Well, yeah,” said Cecil, in that tone of voice that he used whenever Carlos questioned something about Night Vale that Cecil firmly believed everyone should take for granted. “I have to save my clairvoyance for when I’m on the air. I won’t be able to ogle your beautiful hair again until tomorrow afternoon. Although at least in the meantime I get to touch it.” He ran his fingers through the hair at the back of Carlos’ head.

Carlos groaned, resting his face in his hands. Just for a moment, he’d been able to pretend that everything had been restored. It had been lovely, but he’d known it wouldn’t last, and sure enough, the semblance of normality had been shattered as soon as he opened his eyes.

“Shhh, Carlos, it’s okay. You can become overwhelmed with existential dread later. Let me distract you, all right? I can be  _very_ distracting. Why, by the time I’m done, you’ll have a hard time remembering that anything was ever bothering you.”

Carlos didn’t want to live like this, bouncing from setting to setting, following paths laid out by strangers. He wanted to find a way out, to fix everything, to go back to being in charge of his own actions.

Only he hadn’t the slightest idea of how to do that.

Only Cecil was being  _so_ inviting.

Only there was this overwhelming pressure, a sense that there was a certain way things were supposed to go. He felt like he had before, in the lab, before he burned the printout. Some influence was exerting itself on him, and the only difference was that this time he was more aware as it happened. That didn’t make fighting it any more inviting a proposition, though.

Carlos whimpered as he wrapped his arms around Cecil. “Please,” he said, not knowing whether he was saying it because he wanted to or because he was supposed to, “Just help me take my mind off of things.”

“Very well,” said Cecil, leaning forward to kiss Carlos’ cheek. “Would you like me to tell you about my day?”

“Okay,” whispered Carlos.

“The news was so  _boring_ today, Carlos, that while I was reporting it, I spent nearly the whole time watching you. And I thought, ‘It will be so wonderful to get home to Carlos, and undress him, and take him to bed.’ But then  _you_ , you clever scientist, you surprised me. I got home, and you were already in my bed, naked and waiting for me.”

Carlos was naked, entirely, the towel from earlier having evidently disappeared. Some part of him reflected that that wasn’t right, that he didn’t  _choose_ to take his clothes off, that he deserved some autonomy over his state of dress, but he pushed those thoughts away, as well as the emotions that came with them.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” Cecil continued. “I may be blind, but you can’t hide this from me.” He ran his hands over Carlos’ torso, fingers sliding with precision along paths that he’d obviously spent some time committing to memory. Carlos squirmed under the attention.

Cecil moved on top of Carlos, carefully, verifying with touch that everything was where he expected it to be. It was surprisingly intimate, Cecil’s hands traversing Carlos’ form, not just for the pleasure of contact but also for the sake of tactile feedback. Carlos found himself doing the same, placing his hands on Cecil’s shoulders, running them along his back, his sides, touching his face, anything to be in the moment with Cecil, letting him know  _I am here with you_ .

“How do you feel?” Cecil asked.

“Right now, I feel pretty good,” admitted Carlos.

“Well, that’s an improvement, at least.” Cecil sat back, with a sly smile on his face. “Do you think you’d feel better if you helped me out of these clothes?”

Carlos returned the smile, though he knew Cecil couldn’t see it. “Definitely.”

He sat up, and was in a different place again.

Everywhere around him there were people, walking in all different directions, bumping into him and turning him around so that it took a moment to assess his surroundings. He was in a hallway, with ceilings and doors that seemed just a little taller than they should be.

Carlos spotted a door with the universally-recognized “Men’s restroom” sign on it, and pushed toward it as a way of escaping the crowd. Moving through the masses of people was easier than standing still amongst them.

At least, Carlos reflected, he had some clothes on. And no labcoat, for once. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, and carrying a backpack, which he drooped to the floor with a  _thump_ . He rubbed his shoulders where the straps had been digging in. “Just what am I carrying around in that thing?” He asked himself.

As he was leaning down to open the backpack and inspect its contents, he caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror.

It had been a while since Carlos had seen himself in a mirror. Cecil couldn’t be near them, and Carlos wasn’t vain enough to sneak glances at himself every time he found an opportunity. (Sure,  _sometimes_ when he was in a home or a business with a mirror he’d indulge in a little self-examination, but he liked to think he was pretty reserved.) Still, he thought he had a pretty good idea of what he looked like, and that idea didn’t match up to what he saw just then.

His hair was wrong. On the bright side, the hints of grey that Cecil referred to as “dignified” were gone. Unfortunately, so was any semblance of body, or bounce, or whatever it is that those commercials for women’s shampoo say hair is supposed to have. Instead of the playfully tousled look that Carlos normally cultivated, what sat on his head was just an unholy mess.

Even worse was his face. It was rounder than Carlos remembered, his cheekbones less defined and his chin softened. And his skin needed desperate attention. He didn’t even want to count the blemishes he saw, all over his forehead, his nose, his cheeks… Carlos hadn’t dealt with that kind of trouble since he was fifteen.

_Oh god_ .

After all the horrors he’d experienced recently… why did  _high school_ have to be one of them? That was the only part of his life that had come close to inflicting the kind of trauma he would later experience in Night Vale.

At least that explained why the ceilings and doorways and sinks and everything were unusually high. Carlos was just shorter than he usually was.

He turned his head when he heard the door open again, and another teenager entered the restroom. It was Cecil, but not as Carlos knew him. This was what Cecil looked like in some of the old photographs he’d shown to Carlos, many of them showing Cecil and another boy at Scout meetings.

When Carlos saw Cecil his heart dropped into his stomach, metaphorically. Literally, it started to beat, heart. His breath hitched. Cecil, even awkward, gangly, teenaged Cecil, was beautiful. Carlos chided himself for his attraction, thinking that Cecil, in that form, probably wasn’t even past the age of consent. Then he realized that, in this body, neither was he. Then he started wondering about the validity of internal experience versus physical form and he got confused and Cecil was talking so he stopped going over his temporal conundrum and listened.

“Carlos! I was hoping I’d find you here.” The voice that emerged from the teenage Cecil was identical to the voice that Carlos was used to hearing, deep and resonant and at odds with the slight frame and youth of the speaker. “Did you hear the announcements this morning? There’s a dance tonight after school, and I wanted to know if you’d like to go together. Attending with another student more than doubles your chances of surviving, you know! I mean, statistics are punishable by expulsion, so of course you don’t know that, and neither do I, but either way, it’ll be so much fun! So will you go with me?”

“I… um…” Carlos tried to process what Cecil was asking him, but he was distracted by a dark flickering out of the corner of his eye. He thought it was coming from the mirror, but when he looked there was nothing there. Just his reflection, and a sliver of Cecil’s.

“Oh,” said Cecil, following Carlos’ gave. “Let’s move somewhere safer.”

He took Carlos’ hand and led him into the handicapped stall, which was big enough for the two of them to stand comfortably. Rather than standing a reasonable distance from Carlos, though, Cecil backed him against the bathroom wall. The proximity and unbroken eye contact thrilled Carlos, making him feel a combination of tingling excitement, dizziness and nervousness like he hadn’t felt since he was actually in high school.

“So what do you say?” Asked Cecil, close enough that Carlos could feel his breath. “Please come with me.”

“Um, I… Sure,” said Carlos.

Cecil’s face lit up, looking absolutely adorable, thought the part of Carlos that remembered being an adult, and unbelievably sexy, thought the rest of him. “Really? Oh,  _Carlos,_ ” he said, voice low and sultry. “Thank you.” Then he closed the gap between them for a kiss.

Cecil was sloppy, using too much tongue and too much pressure, but Carlos didn’t care. He was teenaged and desperate, and this was better than anything that had ever really happened to him in high school. He wrapped his arms around Cecil, pulling them closer together. Cecil reached between them and undid the button of Carlos’ jeans.

“I don’t know if-” Carlos started to protest, but Cecil cut him off.

“Don’t worry. We won’t get caught.”

That hadn’t actually been what Carlos was worried about. Again, though, he felt that influence pressuring him to act a certain way, and he did  _feel_ young and horny even if he was certain that inside he was someone different. So instead of saying, “No, it’s just that I don’t think this is appropriate,” all he said was “Okay.”

Cecil slipped his hand under the waistband of Carlos’ underwear and began brushing his fingertips against whatever he could reach. He wasn’t any more skilled at this than he was at kissing, but Carlos’ body responded to the slightest, clumsiest touch. He pushed his hips forward, craving contact, any contact, and he was delighted when Cecil pushed back, keeping Carlos pressed against the wall with his body and hands. Forget the kissing,  _this_ was the greatest thing he’d ever experienced, outside of vague fantasies.

Something in Carlos insisted that he’d received handjobs before, most of them better than this one, some of them from Cecil, but that idea plainly contradicted his present experience and he decided it could safely be ignored.

He came embarrassingly quickly.  _I definitely usually last longer than that,_ he thought, without knowing why he thought it. Carlos leaned against the wall, dazed by the experience, while Cecil refastened his pants for him, and then grabbed some toilet paper to clean off his own hand. He kissed Carlos once more, whispered “See you at the dance,” and left.

Carlos watched the stall door swing shut behind Cecil. He listened as the door to the bathroom did the same. And then he was alone, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

He couldn’t decide whether to punch the air in triumph or curl up into a ball because he was feeling sick. Those feelings shouldn’t go together, he knew.

There had to be something he could do to take his mind off this bizarre dichotomy inside him. Maybe he should go to class, but he realized he had no idea which class he was supposed to attend, or even which classes he might be enrolled in.

It was probably a case of Sudden-Onset Amnesia. He should probably find the school nurse and get help.

Carlos took a step forward, and his surroundings dissolved.

Now he stood in a nicely furnished living room, feeling much more clear-headed than before. He remembered being a scientist in Night Vale, and the life he’d built there, and the recent trouble with fan fiction. He tried not to think about what had just transpired; he would deal with his shame when he was ready.

At least the ceilings didn’t seem as high as they had before, so Carlos had presumably returned to his adult height.

“Thank you for joining me, Carlos.”

Carlos turned around to see Cecil standing in a doorway. Behind Cecil, Carlos could make out the shape of a bed covered in red blankets. Cecil was dressed casually, in high-quality jeans and a jacket with elbow patches.

“Now,” said Cecil, “Please remove your clothes.”

“Cecil, I really don’t think I-”

Cecil raised his eyebrows, and cut Carlos off with a gesture. “You said you would do anything it took to raise your grade. Can I not hold you to your word?”

Carlos blinked, this new setting taking shape in his mind. “Oh great, so now  _you’re_ the teacher eliciting sexual favors from a student?”

“Carlos, I am a professor and you will address me accordingly.”

“Oh, I am gonna need  _so much_ therapy when this is all over,” Carlos groaned.  _If this ever is all over_ , his brain emphatically did not add.

“Carlos.” Cecil’s voice had taken on a harsh quality. “I will not have you change your mind when I am _this close_ to finally basking in your loving embrace. Now come here.”

“Cecil, I-”

“That’s Professor Palmer, if you will.”

_"I can’t take this anymore!”_ Carlos screamed out, sinking to the floor. All his confusion and anger and fear escaped in the form of incredible volume. “Before I can get over one trauma it’s on to another. I just don’t have the emotional resilience for this.”

Cecil was at his side immediately. “Oh god Carlos I’m sorry I didn’t mean to distress you please stop screaming I don’t want anyone to find you here like this.”

“Fuck off, Cecil! It’s not like any of this is even real anyway.” Carlos shoved Cecil away from him, and the corrupted version of his boyfriend toppled to the ground.

“Maybe you should sit down?” Cecil suggested. “In a chair, I mean, not on the floor. And we can talk about this, calmly.”

“There’s nothing for us to talk about. They’ve ruined you.”

“What… what are you talking about?” Cecil stammered.

“My Cecil would never be so selfish. You’re a… a perversion of everything about the man I love.”

“I’m sorry, Carlos,” said Cecil. “I n-never meant to hurt you. All I wanted was a… a harmless tryst.”

Carlos laughed, hysterically, tears running down his cheeks. “Harmless. Right. Because manipulating a student into sleeping with you certainly couldn’t cause any lasting damage to his sense of self-worth, or… or any other sort of psychological harm, or WHY AM I EVEN STILL ARGUING WITH YOU none of this matters just  _leave me alone._ ” Carlos buried his face in his hands, trying to block out all external input from this false and disturbing version of reality. At least Cecil didn’t try to talk to him again.

He focused on breathing, trying to push everything out of his mind because he clearly wasn’t prepared to deal with it yet. Carlos understood the negative consequences of repressing emotions, but he also didn’t want to be a helpless wreck of a man just then. After a few minutes he began to calm down. He could breathe without worrying about the exhale turning into a sob, and he started to pay attention to his senses again.

The air around him was becoming unbearably hot. Carlos shifted and felt the constriction of a labcoat, making the heat even worse. When Carlos opened his eyes, it took a moment to see anything through the glare of the sun. Beneath him sand spread out in all directions, reflecting the sun and creating a blanket of light. Carlos squinted and blinked away tears that, this time, were the product of wind and sand rather than emotion.

He was in the Sand Wastes. He recognized the area; he’d been there to collect samples on a few occasions. The ground was almost uniformly flat, providing a view nearly to the horizon all around him (no wonder the people of Night Vale didn’t believe in mountains) and there was only one point of interest that Carlos could identify.

At first it resolved only as a dark smudge against the blinding brightness, but as Carlos’ eyes adjusted he realized it was a person. No,  _two_ people. They lay on a blanket several yards away, and didn’t seem to have noticed Carlos. Frankly, they seemed too involved with one another to notice much of anything beyond their blanket.

One of them was in the process of removing the other’s shirt, and Carlos looked away, not wanting to intrude on a private moment. He tried to walk in the opposite direction to the couple, but once he’d gone a short distance, he found them directly ahead of him and closer than ever. While he was trying to remember the advice he’d learned in Night Vale regarding spatial anomalies, one of the occupants of the blanket noticed him.

“Oh!” Said a familiar voice, as a young man disentangled himself from his companion. For the second time, Carlos found himself staring at a very young Cecil. A little taller this time, with perhaps a bit more maturity to his expression, but definitely too young for Carlos to consider him with any sort of romantic interest.

Carlos realized he didn’t know how old he currently was, or rather, how old the body was that he currently inhabited. The wind blew his hair in all directions, including in front of his face, and he thought he saw the hint of grey that had started encroaching a few years ago, but he couldn’t be certain.

“Hello, beautiful stranger,” said Cecil. He stood up, still wearing most of a Scout uniform.

“Um, hello,” said Carlos, wondering how to react and hoping he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by an external influence like he had earlier.

The other figure rose to his feet and stood behind Cecil. Carlos recognized Earl Harlan from the old photos Cecil had shown him. Earl was wearing considerably less than Cecil, a pair of shorts clinging to his hips as he put an arm around Cecil’s waist and, with the other arm, gave Carlos a shy wave.

“I like your coat,” said Cecil.

“Thanks…” said Carlos, “But, um, it’s actually not very well suited to my current environment.”

“Well then, you should take it off.” Cecil said, forming a smile.

“No, thank you. I think I’ll keep it on for now.” Cecil looked disappointed, but only for a moment. He and Earl began whispering to each other even as Carlos kept talking. “Somehow I don’t think dying of hyperthermia is either likely or a less preferable alternative to the way things have been going lately.”

Carlos waited for the teenagers to finish their conversation, wondering if they’d be able to help him with the spatial anomaly. They went on for a few minutes, touching and stroking each other the entire time, until they seemed to reach a conclusion and looked back to Carlos. Twin nervous smiles showed on their faces as they leaned their heads together. Earl spoke. “We were just about to-”

“Oh, I saw. I mean, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Or to, uh, drop in unannounced.”

“It’s okay,” said Cecil, a dreamy quality to his voice.

“It’s, um, it’s our first time,” said Earl, resting his chin on Cecil’s shoulder while he maintained eye contact with Carlos. “And… seeing as you appeared here, we think it would only be polite to ask you to join us.”

“Please,” added Cecil. “We’d be delighted to have someone as handsome as you.”

“No.” Carlos took a step back, his chest constricting as he considered the scene before him.

Two pairs of eyes widened; two young men looked at Carlos like puppies that had just been slapped. “We assure you, we’re prepared,” said Earl. “You don’t have to worry about us being young and irresponsible.”

“You’re young enough that I really don’t care how responsible you are,” said Carlos. “I have no interest in taking advantage of children.”

Cecil gasped in outrage. “We’re not children! I’ll have you know that I just turned seventeen.”

“Then in the eyes of the law, you’re a child.”

“Not entirely,” Earl interjected. “The Sand Wastes are outside all jurisdiction. That’s why we came out here for our Wilderness Survival badges. No Sheriff’s Secret Police, no safety net, no paperwork,” he said, pressing a kiss to Cecil’s cheek. “If you’re worried about consent, consider it enthusiastically given.”

“By  _both_ of us,” Added Cecil.

Carlos pressed his finger and thumb to his eyes. He needed a break. Just some time, to rebuild his inner emotional barriers after they’d been yet again worn down by whatever these capricious fanfic writers had in store for him. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’m not interested. Please don’t ask me again.”

When he took his hand away, Cecil and Earl were exchanging a look. Cecil squeezed Earl’s hand, then walked forward, stopping inches in front of Carlos.

_“Please_ ,” said Cecil. “I’m horny, I’m just beginning to explore my sexuality, and you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. It must be fate that brought you here. We…” he gestured behind himself, indicating that he was talking about himself and Earl, “could really use someone more mature to help us out. We may be inexperienced, but we’re fast learners and we’re willing to try  _anything_ . Say you’ll be a part of this.”

Carlos told himself that he wasn’t the slightest bit tempted, and that his eyes didn’t keep wandering to the mostly-naked teenager still standing on the blanket a few feet away. He told himself that, even if he  _did_ feel the urge to tackle Cecil to the sand, or to tear off Earl’s shorts and pull the Scout on top of him, that it was just the intangible influence returning, guiding him insistently toward some fanfic author’s desired outcome.

“ _No_ ,” Carlos said again. “Never. I won’t. Got it? Now…”

“Carlos!”

Someone new, a woman, had spoken. Carlos thought he might recognize her voice, but he wasn’t certain.

“I’ve found you!” The woman continued. A hand closed around Carlos’ arm. “Hold on. This may be a little disorienting.”

The world gave way to nothingness. For a moment Carlos couldn’t breathe. There was no ground beneath him, no air around him, no visual or tactile input except for the hand still holding his arm. Just as he began to panic, the nothingness melted away. The woman let go of Carlos and he fell to his hands and knees, gasping for the air.

“Sorry about that. Forcing one’s way between works can be difficult.”

Carlos’ new environment was dim and messy, featuring piles of junk interspersed with wires and blinking lights. His rescuer helped him to a seat on some sort of metal box. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of practical furniture in the room, just a standing desk and dozens of monitors scattered on every available surface.

The woman took off a pair of sunglasses and looked discerningly at Carlos. “Are you feeling all right? Any dizziness? Sense of disorientation?”

“Dizziness, no. Sense of disorientation, absolute… Dana?”

Carlos hadn’t recognized her at first. He didn’t really know Dana, since she’d disappeared before he and Cecil had started dating. He primarily knew what she looked like from that one time she’d walked straight through him. Her hair was different now, dyed in shocking blues and greens at odds with her stark black attire. But she was definitely Dana.

“That’s right,” she said, and smiled like they were old friends who met up in crazy junkrooms all the time. “I think I can help you with the problems you’ve been experiencing.”

“I don’t know,” said Carlos. “Lucy thought she had this thing pretty much figured out, but her solution didn’t seem to do any good.”

“Lucy is not what she seems,” said Dana. “Be careful, Carlos. Trust no one.” She turned to a keyboard and began typing furiously. Text scrawled across her face, glowing green characters flowing over the curve of her bone structure too quickly to read.

Carlos was pretty sure monitors didn’t work that way, but he didn’t have the energy to think too hard about it. Other matters were more concerning. “If you want me to trust no one, then why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t. I may think that I’ve broken free of the narrative chains that constricted me, but there’s every possibility that I’m just as much a part of this trap as anything else. Use your own judgement, and don’t rely on me or anyone else.”

“It’s a little hard to use my own judgement when I don’t have any idea what’s going on.”

“I can explain things to you,” said Dana, “though my own understanding is limited. Why don’t you start by telling me what you know?”

“Well, my life is… there’s a universe where it’s all fictional. And then people write fanfic, because I guess I’m important enough to have fans, and Lucy figured out how to read this fanfic-”

“So she says,” Dana interrupted.

Carlos blinked. “Um, yeah. And then the fanfic started… encroaching? On my real life, and now I’m… I’m stuck, in a world of false realities, and I don’t have any idea how to get home or even how to control which fanfic version of my world I end up in.”

Dana made a few more decisive keystrokes, and then yanked something small and black out of a computer bank. “I don’t know how long I can keep you here, so I’ll be brief,” she said. “I am not the real Dana. I am a version of Dana that was created for a fanfiction work described as a ‘Cyberpunk AU.’ In this work, I collaborate with you and Cecil in order to bring down StrexCorp using a variety of hacking techniques. Not the real you, or the real Cecil. They’re just copies, poor imitations of the originals, like I am.”

“Copies? So… all those times I’ve met Cecil, was he… was he ever the real him?”

“Not since you first entered a fanfiction work, no.”

Carlos had been entertaining those suspicions for a while now. Having them confirmed was equal parts reassuring and distressing. “How do I get the real Cecil back?” Carlos asked.

“I don’t know.” Dana picked up a flexible cable and strung her small black object along it. “More data is required.” She tied a knot in the cable so that it formed a long loop. “This will help.” She placed the cable over Carlos’ head like a necklace. “Don’t worry about running into the fake versions of you and Cecil here, by the way. They’re safe at home by the end of the story. And I’m left here, with nothing to do but mess around with computers all day long. Which is how I gained access to the html code that governs my existence as a fictional character on the Internet. And I discovered how to manipulate that code, not in ways that can effect major changes to myself, but in ways that can alter the connections between my own fictional reality and others. Which is how I found you.”

Carlos clutched the object hanging from his neck as he considered everything Dana had said. Something significant occurred to him. “Wait, Dana, am I the real Carlos?”

But before Dana could answer, she was gone. The blinking lights and cables and screens had disappeared along with her, leaving Carlos in a different dim room. Naked. Kneeling on a soft surface, with Cecil underneath him.

He knew that some part of this should concern him, that he’d been trying to figure something out and it was  _important_ and that something about where he was and what he was doing wasn’t right. But at the moment, nothing seemed like it could be as important as pressing his hips forward, entering Cecil and hearing the moan of pleasure that the action elicited.

Carlos arched his back, feeling his whole body loosen. His arms stretched out, lifting him higher above Cecil, and his wings spread behind him, bathing the two of them in ethereal light.

The confusion in Carlos’ mind about his feathery appendages was entirely unwarranted. Carlos had always had wings. They were just as much a part of him as anything else, and he flapped them lazily as he reveled in the experience of being one with Cecil. He did so enjoy being this close to the man he loved, with nothing at all between them.

Well, nothing except the piece of black plastic resting on Cecil’s chest. Carlos picked it up, curiously. In the light of his wings, the object looked like a flash drive, attached to Carlos by a cord around his neck.

“Carlos?” Asked Cecil. “What is that?”

Carlos stared at the object in his hands for a moment longer before answering. “I don’t know. It’s… I don’t think it’s supposed to be here. But it  _is_ here, so it’s probably…” As Carlos was in the middle of his sentence, Cecil disappeared. His surroundings resolved into a well-lit coffee shop, where Carlos was sitting at a table, still holding the flash drive. “...Important,” he concluded.

As he finished his thought, Carlos felt a mental lock fall away. He  _remembered_ what was happening. The things he’d gone through, the things Dana had said to him, the things he’d seen and done that he’d rather forget. With the memories came a flood of emotions; fear, regret, shame, anger, all those negative ones that a person usually tries to keep shoved to the back of his mind. Carlos thought he might cry.

He  _didn’t_ cry, as it turned out. For several minutes he felt on the verge of tears, but he wouldn’t go over that edge. There were too many things in his head, too many traumas and concerns and unresolved questions. By the time he got his thoughts sorted out enough that he could focus on any one of them in particular, the shock of remembering had faded, as had the intensity of the emotional onslaught.

Carlos had things to do. Dana had given him the memory stick for a reason, so he might as well see what was on it. He didn’t hold out a lot of hope for it helping him, but it gave him something to focus on aside from his emotional turmoil. A laptop sat on the table in front of him, so he plugged the flash drive in.

The information held therein included a text file and an executable. Carlos opened the text file first, to see if it would provide any instructions, but all he found was a list of urls. When pasted into a browser, all they turned up were 404s and “Could not find the server” messages. Carlos double-checked his internet connection, and found that he could definitely access other websites, just not those listed in the text file.

“Carlos!” Called out a familiar voice. Carlos looked up to see Cecil standing behind the counter, holding a cup. He caught Carlos’ eye and smiled. “Carlos with the caramel cappuccino,” he said dreamily, when Carlos took the drink from him. “I’m sorry for the delay. Someone spilled orange juice in the milk and I didn’t realize it was curdled until your drink was finished, so I had to do it all over again.”

“That’s okay, Cecil,” said Carlos. Cecil beamed.

“You remember my name!”

“Of course I do.”

“I know, I know, you’ve been a regular here for months now, I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s just... I never want to  _assume_ that a handsome customer remembers me at all.” Cecil babbled on, looking surprised and embarrassed at himself once he finished talking.

Carlos chuckled, partially out of amusement and partly out of nervousness. “Right. Well, uh, I have-”

“Studying to do, right,” said Cecil. “And I should probably take care of some of these less-handsome customers, shouldn’t I?”

Carlos nodded, and returned to his chair.  _He’s not the real Cecil_ , Carlos reminded himself. Going over their conversation for clues as to precisely what was going on in this corner of the fanfiction world wouldn’t get him anywhere. By the time he figured out the basics of this one setting, he would likely be uprooted and placed in another one.

_Are you sure you want to run this file?_ Asked the laptop. Carlos selected “Yes.”

A new browser installed itself on Carlos’ computer. The desktop icon looked just like that for his old browser. The default homepage was Google. It all looked quite ordinary. The only visible difference was that Dana had labeled this browser “Real Life.”

Copying the first url from the list into this new browser, Carlos found that this time, it worked.

It directed him to the homepage for a podcast called “Welcome to Night Vale.” He fished in the pockets of the labcoat whose presence he had stopped questioning, and found a pair of earphones. Putting them in, he found the first episode and clicked “Play.”

Cecil’s voice rang in his head. He looked up, seeing that Cecil-the-barista was still in the room, taking an order from a customer. Watching Cecil in the coffee shop, while listening to Cecil broadcasting news, was too much cognitive dissonance for Carlos to handle. He dropped his eyes back to the screen.

Cecil… the real Cecil, presumably, because it certainly  _sounded_ like a genuine recording of his show… was talking about the opening of the Dog Park. That must mean this show was from around the time Carlos had moved to Night Vale. Sure enough, scarcely a minute later Cecil began describing Carlos, the new scientist who’d just come into town.

For roughly twenty minutes, Carlos sipped his coffee and listened to the news from when he arrived in Night Vale. He got the impression that this podcast was an abridged version of Cecil’s news show, cobbling together the most exciting or amusing announcements from a period of a few days.

The next episode was from when Carlos had only been in Night Vale for a couple of weeks, and the Glow Cloud first came through town. Or so it seemed; Carlos, like everyone else in Night Vale, had completely forgotten that incident. It was interesting, listening to this broadcast that he’d listened to once and then forgotten about, and of which no recording remained in his own reality. This connection Dana had set up for him could be a useful resource, assuming he could keep the flash drive once everything else was set right.

There were more than forty episodes of the podcast, which meant listening to  _all_ of them would keep Carlos occupied for well over ten hours. He didn’t know what kind of time he had, but he doubted it would be enough.

Thankfully, the next url he tried got him transcripts of the podcast. He skimmed through them, finding news highlights from roughly every couple of weeks for the past eighteen months or so. The people who listened to this podcast would presumably have a decent idea of the general goings-on in Night Vale, but the transcripts were short on specifics, such as the cultural details that Carlos had learned by repeatedly embarrassing himself in public, and the many fascinating scientific problems he’d solved.

Of course, comparatively few of Carlos’ scientific discoveries were reported in the news, even if Cecil did give him more than his fair share of coverage. Still, the podcast provided significantly less information about Carlos’ work and his team than what the typical Night Vale resident would have heard if they listened to Cecil’s show every day.

The next url clarified things quite a bit. The Welcome to Night Vale wiki detailed just about all of the information the podcast had provided about Cecil, Carlos, and other Night Vale inhabitants, as well as the city itself. There was a little speculation here and there to fill in gaps, but most of the information was accurate, if incomplete. The people who put that website together probably knew more about Night Vale than Carlos’ colleagues outside the city did. And, though information on the subject was limited, Carlos did gain some insight about Desert Bluffs. Particularly Kevin, the radio host who did their community news show.

Several “characters” from Night Vale had individual wiki pages, and a few of those… including Carlos’, and of course, Cecil’s, listed voice actors. Carlos’ page listed two, one prior to his vocal chord replacement and one after. Thinking about actors portraying Carlos as a fictional character by reading words that he had actually said was too weird for his brain to process, so he closed the wiki and moved on to the next url.

Unfortunately, things just got weirder from there.

Night Vale was, evidently, very popular on Tumblr.

Carlos was used to Tumblr in a very particular context. Mostly he followed Cecil’s posts, which consisted primarily of pictures of the two of them, along with the occasional local news bulletin or artistic rendering of Khoshekh. The things Carlos posted were mainly TED talks or scientific articles he thought were interesting, along with reblogs of Cecil’s posts.

_Most_ of Carlos’ Tumblr use had centered around Cecil. He didn’t have a clear idea of how other people used it, but apparently in an alternate reality quite a lot of people were using it to post drawings of Cecil and himself.

They were clearly going without any true visual reference… Carlos saw men of varying races and outlandish hairstyles, each one apparently meant to be him. There seemed to be a consensus on a few of Carlos’ features, though… they mostly got his hair coloration right, at least. When it came to Cecil, it seemed no one had the slightest idea what he looked like.

A few of the depictions came close, but that had more to do with the law of probability than anything. With so many variations, it would be difficult  _not_ to hit the mark every once in a while.

Many of these depictions of Cecil weren’t even human. Lots of them had tentacles, third eyes, or other appendages, and quite a few broke from the human template entirely and represented Cecil as some sort of monster. Where there weren’t monsters, there were usually tattoos. Carlos shook his head as he realized how ubiquitous the tattoos were… and how similar. He couldn’t tell where the idea that Cecil had purple tattoos covering his arms came from, but it had clearly taken root.

All of that… the somewhat off-kilter versions of himself, the  _extremely_ off-kilter versions of Cecil, the sheer  _number_ of people drawing these pictures… couldn’t prepare Carlos for the shock of seeing just  _how much_ of him and his boyfriend some of these people were drawing.

Viewing pornography in a public place was definitely a bad idea, even if it was during the course of necessary research. Carlos looked around to make sure his screen couldn’t be seen by any of the other patrons, and moved on quickly any time he encountered an image that seemed likely to get him kicked out of the coffee shop.

There were one or two that he lingered on, out of fascination more than arousal. And maybe a little embarrassment when he realized that the drawings were, generally speaking, more well-endowed than he was.

Carlos got lost in the succession of drawings, brief speculations and commentary on his adopted hometown. He was particularly amused by a list of “Night Vale citizens ranked according to beauty,” which put him right at the top. Hiram McDaniels, of all people, was number two, and Cecil, while significantly lower than Carlos, still made the top ten.

Oddly, Lucy wasn’t on the list, though her identical twin sister was number three. Steve Carlsberg came in dead last, which wasn’t really fair, but if all one knew of Steve was the vitriol Cecil spewed during his show, Carlos could see how one might arrive at that impression.

Just as Carlos was copying the next url into the browser, he heard Cecil’s voice beside him saying, “Excuse me?” He looked up to see Cecil-the-barista standing next to his table, coffee cup in hand. Unconsciously, he angled the laptop to make it more difficult for Cecil to see the screen.

“I noticed you’ve been working for a while, and you finished your cappuccino some time ago, so I made you a second one. On the house,” Cecil continued, setting the cup down in front of Carlos.

“Um, thank you, Cecil,” said Carlos.

“Anything for my favorite customer,” said Cecil with a wink, before returning to his place behind the counter.

Carlos sighed. He’d rather not lead this imitation of Cecil on, but taking the time to either explain the truth or concoct a viable lie would be impractical. He tore his eyes away from Cecil, and examined the latest website.

Lucy had showed Carlos a little of this one when he’d first brought Cecil into the lab. It was a list of fanfiction written about Welcome to Night Vale. Most of it concerned his relationship with Cecil, though there were a handful of items which focused on other Night Vale residents, such as Dana, and a surprisingly high number about Kevin and some person referred to as “Desert Bluffs Carlos.”

“The Tyranny of Headcanons” was on the first page, and Carlos scrolled past it. While it might make a useful resource, he just wasn’t prepared to relive any of those experiences.

Reading the shorter stories, and skimming through the longer ones, Carlos started to get a feel for this fanfiction community. Every once in a while he stumbled across a particularly graphic description of intercourse and scrambled to get back to the index page before anyone noticed. At least text was less eye-catching than artwork, but Carlos did not want to be caught reading erotica in which he was a subject.

It was difficult to tell where artistic license ended and human error began, but stories in which either Cecil or Carlos acted reasonably similar to their living counterparts were few and far between. There seemed to be trends in the stories, too. A whole lot of works about phone sex lines gave way to a whole lot of works set in the Victorian era gave way to a whole lot of works about Carlos having wings gave way to a whole lot of works about Cecil’s experiences with the Night Vale Municipal Transit Authority subways.

Those had, Carlos noticed, mostly been posted a short time after the actual incident with the subways. He’d been working his way back through time, clicking through page after page, and the further back he went, the less information the fanfic writers were working with. He decided to click on the last page, bringing him to the chronologically earliest stories, which seemed to be from June of the previous year. The podcast had been going for considerably longer than that, so it seemed to have taken a while to catch on.

Once it did, though… well, just in the time that Carlos had spent reading, several new stories had been posted. He scrolled through the first page again, looking at the new stories that had just gone up, but he didn’t bother reading them. His mind was about as saturated with fanfiction as it could get. At least “The Tyranny of Headcanons” had been pushed toward the bottom of the page. Carlos refreshed, vaguely hoping that more stories would appear at the top and he wouldn’t have to look at that uncomfortable title again.

As if taunting him, however, “The Tyranny of Headcanons”now appeared at the top of the page. Carlos was perplexed until he noticed that the chapter count was now at 21, when he was almost entirely certain that it had previously read 20. And he certainly hoped his memory was correct, because otherwise it had just jumped up the page for no reason and that would mean his grasp of reality was even poorer than he’d thought.

Carlos clicked on the offending story, certain that if he didn’t investigate further he’d regret it. There was that familiar beginning, “Carlos began humming to himself while he washed dishes” blah blah Cecil getting amorous and Carlos scrolled down to see where it ended.

_“How do you feel?” Cecil asked._

_“Right now, I feel pretty good,” admitted Carlos._

_“Well, that’s an improvement, at least.” Cecil sat back, with a sly smile on his face. “Do you think you’d feel better if you helped me out of these clothes?”_

_Carlos returned the smile, though he knew Cecil couldn’t see it. “Definitely.”_

_He sat up, and was in a different place again._

The text was familiar, but Carlos definitely hadn’t read it before. When Lucy had printed this story out back in the lab, it had ended with Carlos burning the manuscript. That conversation with Cecil, though, which now represented the end of the story, had taken place significantly later. Carlos scrolled up, finally locating the “ending” he was familiar with.

It seemed Lucy had only printed out the first sixteen chapters of the story. It was possible that she’d just missed a few, so that Carlos had burned an incomplete copy. Given what Carlos had just witnessed, though, he thought it more likely that additional chapters had since been written.

At least, at this point, the story only detailed things Carlos had already done, rather than things he was about to do. That meant his actions may not be predetermined, and he could find a way to effect change.

Hoping that it would provide some clues as to what he could do, Carlos entered the last url from Dana’s list into the browser.

This webpage was different. It appeared to be one that Dana had set up on her own, just for the sake of leaving a message.

_Carlos,_

It read,

_I don’t know how much time I will have had in my own setting to explain what I understand of your situation to you. Hopefully when you read this you will have had time to look over the other information I have provided. There is one more fact I can provide that may help you._

_I must caution you to use this information only when the time is correct. You may be discovered after your first attempt, so I urge you to wait until you are fully prepared. However, this information may be outdated before long, so please act with all reasonable swiftness and do not hesitate when the moment arrives._

_By now you may have noticed that your path runs strikingly parallel to that outlined in a particular work titled “The Tyranny of Headcanons,” posted by an account with the name “Tied43rd.” I have uncovered the password to this account. I do not know what action you may take upon logging in, but I am confident that you will find a solution._

_The password is “EveryB1t4sBeautiful,” case-sensitive._

_Remember: Do not log in until you have a plan and are ready to act on it._

_Good Luck,_

_Dana_

Carlos’ first instinct was to delete the story. Several problems with that idea immediately made themselves apparent, though. It was plausible that, if Carlos deleted the story while it still had some hold on him, he would wind up deleting himself as well. Or Tied43rd could still have a local copy that it could be restored from, and Dana had made it clear that he would likely only have one chance to make his move.

Perhaps he could edit the story himself, add in a chapter where everything returned to normal (or what passed for normal in Night Vale) and end the story with Carlos safe at home with Cecil. The problem was that he didn’t know of a way to stop the original Tied43rd from logging in and adding still more chapters, or even deleting Carlos’ writing. He could change the password, but presumably some form of password recovery option existed for the original user. What he needed was a way to lock the story against all future edits.

“Excuse me, Carlos?” Again, Cecil was standing beside him.

“Hm?”

“The shop is closing, so I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. But, um, I wanted to invite you… I mean, my shift’s over, I’m about to go home and it’s only like a block away and would you like to join me?”

Carlos’ eyes darted between Cecil and the laptop screen. He’d just had a thought, and he’d rather look it up right then while it was fresh in his mind. “I’m sorry Cecil, there’s just one more thing I’d like to-”

“I’m afraid I really can’t let you stay here, even if you  _are_ my favorite customer,” Cecil insisted, “But if you’d like to keep studying without taking too much of a break, you’re free to use the wifi in my apartment.”

“Um.” Carlos didn’t particularly want to go to imitation-Cecil’s home. He didn’t want to fend off amorous advances once more, and he  _certainly_ didn’t want to wind up losing control of himself and reciprocating said amorous advances. If he was being kicked out of the coffee shop, though, he would need a place to continue his research. “Okay,” he agreed, “But just a friendly visit, okay? This isn’t a romantic thing.”

Cecil frowned, but he nodded. “Okay.”

Carlos closed his laptop, returning the thumb drive to its place hanging from his neck. Cecil offered to help by carrying the power cord, and a short walk later, they entered Cecil’s small but cozy ground-floor apartment.

“Can I get you anything?” Offered Cecil. “Coffee? I mean, you’ve had coffee already today and this wouldn’t be as good, but I could make some if you wanted. Or armagnac? Or, uh… anything else you might like?”

“Just the wifi password would be great,” said Carlos, sitting on Cecil’s couch and opening his laptop.

“Oh, sure, it’s WZZZ, all-caps,” said Cecil.

“Like the numbers station?”

“What?”

“The… the numbers station,” repeated Carlos. “WZZZ? The one that just broadcasts a woman’s voice saying different numbers, interspersed with occasional chimes?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Cecil. “I chose it because I thought it would be easy to remember. You’re telling me it’s also the name of a radio station?”

“You know what, I’m probably wrong,” said Carlos as he entered the password and got online. “I probably have it confused with something else.”

More likely, Night Vale’s numbers station didn’t exist in whatever reality employed Cecil as a barista. Carlos thought it best to avoid any arguments over trivial inconsistencies. He had a FAQ to search through.

He’d seen a mention, in the notes to some story or another, of previous works that were no longer associated with that writer’s account. If he could figure out how to do that with “The Tyranny of Headcanons,” then he could potentially prevent Tied43rd from undoing his changes.

Carlos was just reading through the first FAQ page, which didn’t seem terribly pertinent to the issue at hand, when Cecil dropped into the seat beside him, holding two mugs of coffee.

“What are you working on?” Asked Cecil, handing one of the mugs to Carlos.

“Oh, um…” Carlos tried to figure out the quickest possible explanation, to let him get back to his search sooner. He used the coffee as an excuse to take a second to think. After taking a cautious sip, he put it down on the side table by the couch. “I’m basically… I need to post something online, but make it impervious to editing. By myself or anyone else. So I’m trying to figure out if this website will let me, like, lock a document, so that it remains permanently in the state I leave it in without the possibility of tampering.”

“Having any luck?” Cecil leaned in to see what was on the screen, pressing against Carlos’ side as he did so. Carlos resisted the urge to block Cecil’s view of the screen, as that likely would have just encouraged him to try harder.

“I think there’s a way,” said Carlos. “I’m just not very familiar with this website and I need to figure out how to do it.”

Cecil rested his head on Carlos’ shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll get it. You’re very smart.”

Carlos couldn’t help but smile. “I appreciate your confidence.” He kept reading. Cecil had his right arm practically immobilized, but he could click and scroll well enough with his left. It took getting through a few more pages of FAQs before he found something promising, accompanied by a link to another FAQ page. There, in bold, was exactly the promise he’d been looking for.

“Permanent and irreversible,” he read aloud. “Perfect.”

Cecil lifted his head from Carlos’ shoulder. “You found what you were looking for?”

Carlos nodded. “Now all I need to do is-” He was cut off as Cecil threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“There’s time for that later, I’m sure,” said Cecil, not giving Carlos the chance to speak. “For now,” he continued, closing the laptop and moving it to sit beside Carlos’ mug of coffee, “I’d like to show you a little hospitality.”

“Cecil, I really need to work on this. You agreed this would just be a friendly visit!”

Cecil opened his mouth to respond, but Carlos was saved further argument as his surroundings once again dissolved and reformed themselves.

“Good morning, Nurse Carlos.” Cecil, wearing polka-dot pajamas, was sitting cross-legged on a simple bed in a sparsely furnished room.

Carlos didn’t want to take the time to figure out why Cecil had called him a nurse, or just where they were. He wanted to write an end to this damn story so that he could return home to the real Night Vale and the real Cecil and put all of this behind him. “Good morning, Cecil,” he said. “Do you know where I could find some paper and a pen, or pencil?”

Cecil’s eyebrows drew together in a concerned expression. “We’re not allowed to have pens or pencils. Are you accusing me of breaking the rules? Because I would never do that. Dr. Harlan tells me I’m a model patient.”

“Indeed you are, Cecil,” said a voice from behind Carlos. He turned around to see Earl Harlan, dressed in a labcoat and looking significantly older than he had out in the desert. “Was the mean nurse casting aspersions on one of my favorite patients?”

Cecil shook his head, getting up from the bed and holding Carlos’ arm. “Not at all Dr. Harlan. I was just making a joke please don’t fire Carlos he’s the best nurse I’ve ever had I’m sorry Nurse Carlos I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

“I think Nurse Carlos can speak for himself, Cecil,” said Earl, and Cecil immediately shut his mouth and looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Harlan. I just forgot about the ban on pens and pencils,” Carlos explained. He’d actually remembered the ban, but hoped very strongly that whatever setting he’d arrived in (a hospital of some sort, it seemed) wouldn’t enforce it.

“Did you bring a pen in here?” Snapped Earl.

“No, no,” insisted Carlos. “I was just looking for one. I need to write something down.”

While Carlos and Earl spoke, Cecil played with Carlos’ hand, twining and untwining their fingers repeatedly.

Earl nodded. “If you have a moment to step into my office, I think I could help you.”

“Okay,” said Carlos, “That’d be great.” He tried to move toward the door, but Cecil gripped his arm, holding him in place.

“Cecil?” Said Earl. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let go of Nurse Carlos for a moment.”

Cecil nodded, but kept his hold on Carlos. “Of course, Dr. Harlan. I just… I wanted to let you know, um, the next time Nurse Carlos is here, and you’re here too, we decided that if you wanted to join us, we’d be up for a threesome. If you wanted.”

“Cecil!” Exclaimed Carlos, eyes widening in shock as he snapped his attention back to the man maintaining a vice-like grip on his arm.

“Cecil,” said Earl, in a much more calm voice. “Do you remember the discussion we had regarding romantic entanglements between health care professionals and patients?”

“Yes,” Cecil replied, voice small.

“Given that information,” Earl continued, “Do you really think that a threesome between yourself, Nurse Carlos, and me, would be reasonable?”

“No, Dr. Harlan.”

“That’s right. It would constitute a serious breach of medical ethics.” Earl’s voice was kind, yet firm as he spoke.

“But when I’m cured-”

“When you are no longer Nurse Carlos’ or my patient, then you may consider making romantic advances toward either or both of us, but it would still be a tricky ethical situation and would all have to tread cautiously. Until then, let us focus on improving your mental health to a state where you are capable of handling such social challenges, all right?”

“All right, Dr. Harlan.”

“Good. Now, will you kindly release Nurse Carlos so that he and I may confer in my office?”

Cecil let go of Carlos’ arm. “It’s okay, Cecil,” whispered Carlos as he followed Earl out of the room and down the hallway, Cecil staring after them like an abandoned puppy.

“I’ve got plenty of paper in here,” said Earl, taking a key from his pocket and unlocking a door that read  _Doctor Earl Harlan, Psychiatrist_ . “I can’t give you a pen, but I might be able to find a solution that will work for you.”

“Whatever you can do would be appreciated,” said Carlos, stepping into the office after Earl. Closing the door behind them, Earl proceeded to open a file cabinet drawer and pull out a pad of lined paper.

“There you go. And, this isn’t ideal,” Earl continued, grabbing a black crayon from a container on his desk, “But you can write with it, and the patients can’t use it to hurt anyone too badly.”

“Thank you, Ea… Dr. Harlan.”

“Please, call me Earl,” said Earl, sitting on his desk.

“All right. Thank you, Earl.” Carlos held up the crayon and paper. “I’d better get to work.”

“Before you do,” Earl’s voice stopped Carlos’ hand as he reached for the doorknob. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

Carlos turned back, to see Earl fidgeting nervously on his desk.

“That suggestion that Cecil made-”

“I swear,” said Carlos, interrupting Earl, “I haven’t behaved inappropriately with regards to-”

“I know. I’m not accusing you,” Earl assured him. Carlos hoped his trust was well-placed. While Carlos was willing to defend his behavior for the sake of self-preservation, he couldn’t trust that his fictional counterpart in this story had comported himself in strict accordance with medical ethics. After all, Carlos’ relationship with Cecil in real life would hardly be appropriate between a nurse and a patient. “I just wanted to say that, although I had to maintain a professional demeanor for Cecil’s sake… That doesn’t bely a lack of interest in you. You’re a very attractive man, Carlos, and I’d like to invite you to join me for dinner this evening.”

Carlos was torn between wanting to yell in shock, press a hand to his face, or sigh resignedly. He hadn’t seen this coming at all, but in retrospect he was certain he should have. He settled for a dispassionate “Oh.”

Earl’s face fell. “It’s perfectly fine if you don’t want to, of course. I wouldn’t want to pressure you into anything-”

“No, Earl, it’s… I’m sorry. I didn’t… I wasn’t expecting this. And it’s… I’m not… It’s just, I’ve got this thing I  _really have_ to do,” here, he held up the pad of paper, “and I don’t know how long it will take and I really can’t afford any distractions until it’s finished.”

Earl smiled. “Okay. Take as much time as you need. And maybe, when you’re finished..?”

Carlos smiled, too. “Maybe, when I’m finished.” He was lying, of course, or at least misleading Earl. Carlos’ world was one where Earl had come to an unhappy end, and Carlos couldn’t help but feel selfish at wanting to return there, just because it was better for him and Cecil. He reminded himself that this Earl was just a copy of the real Scoutmaster, but that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty.

He found a spot in the hall where he could sit down, back against the wall. If he’d taken the time to look around he could probably have found a chair, maybe even a table, but he valued speed over comfort just then. Putting crayon to paper, he began to write.

It was a strange experience, writing about himself in the third person. Using a crayon as his utensil didn’t help either; Carlos couldn’t help but flash back to grade school, working on little projects to demonstrate that he understood how synonyms worked or could list the months of the year.

_Carlos hit “Post,” and immediately clicked “Edit” and selected “Orphan this work.”_

That much was easy enough to write. But it didn’t seem like nearly enough. Carlos would have to specify that he was able to return home to find Cecil there, that Cecil was perfectly healthy in body and spirit and that they returned to the loving relationship they’d shared before this fiasco. It might be a good idea to insert some sort of limiting factor to their sex lives, to avoid Cecil turning back into the sex-crazed maniac that populated these stories, but Carlos didn’t want to overdo it and wind up in a perfectly chaste relationship with his sexy boyfriend.

He needed to describe his relationship with Cecil clearly and accurately, while also specifying a calm and manageable reunion. Taking a deep breath, Carlos gripped the crayon tighter and began the next sentence.

“Carla! What are you doing drawing when we’ve got a dinner to put together?” The voice that met Carlos’ ears was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It was female, but sultry, and surprisingly low to be coming from a member of that sex.

At first Carlos ignored the speaker, who seemed to be talking to someone else anyway. As he continued forming clumsy letters with his crayon, though, a purple-nailed hand snatched it away from him, leaving a dark line streaking across the paper.

“Hey! What was that for?” Carlos’ voice sounded strange, and he cleared his throat as he looked up at the woman who’d taken his crayon.

“This is our first dinner party as a couple and you are  _not_ going to sit there doing Science and make me do all the preparation!”

“I… um…” Carlos was rendered inarticulate while attempting to comprehend the face he was staring into.

It was very similar to Cecil’s, but unmistakably feminine. This woman could be Cecil’s twin sister. She seemed taller than Cecil, though. Ridiculously tall, though that could just have been Carlos’ perspective from where he sat on the floor.

“Up you get, Carla! You wouldn’t leave your girlfriend alone with all your work, would you?”

Whether she was Cecil’s twin sister or some other strange thing, she and Carlos were evidently a couple in this take on reality. Which was unsettling, to say the least. Carlos didn’t really care to think about a version of himself that was straight.

The Cecil woman pulled Carlos to his feet, and he confirmed that she was in fact ridiculously tall.

“Okay, I’m going to start the rice boiling. Can you get those peppers chopped?”

Carlos looked at the cutting board with various peppers arranged neatly beside it while the Cecil woman turned her attention to the stove. The paper, with a sentence and a half neatly scribbled in crayon accompanied by a long black mark, was still in Carlos’ hand. “I’m sorry,” said Carlos, his voice still sounding bizarrely off-kilter, “But I really need to finish this. Could I have that crayon back, please?”

The woman turned away from the stove to face Carlos with a glare. “You cannot be serious.  _Carla_ . We have-”

“Why do you keep calling me Carla?” The first couple of times Carlos had ignored it, figuring he’d misheard and not wanting to waste effort on a minor pronunciation irregularity. It kept happening, though, and it was really starting to bother him.

“Do you want me to use a pet name? It’s just that I haven’t decided on one yet. I can’t imagine a name more beautiful than your own.”

“I’m sorry,” said Carlos, “I’m confused.”

The woman chuckled and reached a hand up to touch Carlos’ hair. “Everything about you is beautiful, my lovely Carla.” She brought her hand down, running Carlos’ hair between her fingers. “Especially this.”

Carlos caught her hand in his own. “Okay, seriously, I…” He trailed off as he realized that his hair was much longer than it had been a moment before. Finally taking a moment for self-appraisal, he looked down and saw waist-length hair cascading down his shoulders. That wasn’t terribly unusual; he’d certainly worn his hair long enough at different points in his life.

More unusual was the shape of Carlos’ chest, which seemed to have considerable difficulty staying in his lab coat without spilling over. “Huh,” he remarked, letting go of Cecil’s hand to poke at his fleshy protuberances, “I have breasts. Weird.”

“More like gorgeous,” remarked the Cecil woman, leaning over Carlos in a clear effort to look down his cleavage. Carlos wondered if perhaps he should cover himself or push her away. He really wasn’t certain what constituted appropriate etiquette for this sort of anatomy. “Everything about you is beautiful. I really mean it, Carla. I love you.  _All_ of you. Your body, your name, your hair…”

“Okay, I get it,” said Carlos, “But right now the only thing that matters is getting this writing done!”

As he spoke his voice cracked, like it had when he was in high school. By the time he finished the sentence he sounded like himself again. The kitchen was gone, and Carlos found himself standing outdoors, on the edge of a forest.

“Well, if that’s the only thing that matters, then it shall be done!” Carlos was relieved to hear Cecil’s voice again. Though he knew, intellectually, that it still wouldn’t be his own Cecil, knowing that he could interface with a Cecil who was at least male and sounded the way Carlos remembered was comforting.

The comfort was short lived, however, when he took in the sight of Cecil standing before him.

He was taller even than the woman who’d had Carlos cornered just moments before. He was shirtless, but Carlos didn’t have much mental energy to spare on that information because he was too busy looking below Cecil’s waist. Not because Cecil wasn’t wearing pants, though he wasn’t, but because his lower half was far more horse-shaped than Carlos was used to.

“How may I be of assistance, Prince Carlos?”

Carlos didn’t know why Cecil was calling him ‘Prince,’ but it was better than ‘Carla.’

“Um.” Carlos was still holding the pad of paper, but his crayon was long gone. “Could you get me something to write with?”

“Certainly. Khoshekh!” Cecil called out, and a small creature bounded out of the woods to land on his shoulder.

Khoshekh, as Carlos was used to him, was certainly unusual when compared to other cats. However, he was  _nothing_ compared to the creature that currently alighted on Cecil’s frame.

“You’ll forgive Khoshekh for not bowing. Cats are notoriously irreverent creatures.”

Carlos could have pointed out that cats usually lack wings, and bioluminescence, and only have the one tail, but he’d learned by now to keep his mouth shut when things didn’t make sense to him.

Cecil reached up to his shoulder and plucked a feather from one of Khoshekh’s wings. “There you are. The finest quill to be found in the Forest of Night. Ah, but you’ll be wanting ink! Please, if you’ll do me the honor of accompanying me to my home, I believe I can accommodate you.”

The centaur turned and walked into the forest, and Carlos, lacking any better plan, followed.

They had been standing just on the edge of a field, bordering a great mass of trees. After a few steps into the forest, Carlos could hardly see a few feet in any direction. He was glad to have a big old centaur leading the way, because otherwise he’d never be able to follow the trail.

The canopy of leaves was so thick that very little sunlight filtered through. If he didn’t have Khoshekh’s bioluminescence to light the way, Carlos thought he wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all. And Cecil, despite being a massive combination of man and horse, somehow moved through the trees with near complete silence.

“Here we are!” Declared Cecil. They had walked into a dome, formed by a circle of trees that all grew up and towards each other to meet in the center and create a ceiling over an open space. Stones hanging at regular intervals produced different colors of light, allowing far more visibility than would be allowed by Khoshekh alone. A pit of rocks held the embers of a fire, and various bunches of herbs and leaves were suspended from tree branches.

A large desk, carved entirely from stone, blended in so well with the wall of trees that at first Carlos didn’t notice it. The desk was large, and certainly much taller than any desk Carlos would ever have used, but probably about the right size for a centaur.

Cecil removed a small pot from the desk and handed it to Carlos. “I’m sorry I don’t have any chairs,” he said. “I don’t receive many human visitors.”

“That’s fine,” said Carlos, holding up the little pot and examining it. “Um, what’s this?”

“Ink, of course,” Cecil told him. “You said you needed to write.”

Carlos nodded. “Right. Um. Okay.” He’d never used a quill and ink before, but he figured it couldn’t be as bad as writing in crayon. He sat down on the ground and laid out his supplies before him, the quill resting on the pad of paper while he uncapped the ink.

Writing with a quill and ink was, it turned out, worse than writing in crayon.

It might have been easier if the luminous rocks provided more light. Carlos could hardly tell how much ink was on the end of the quill. Of course, he really didn’t know how much ink  _should_ be on the end of the quill, or how he was supposed to hold it against the paper to avoid splattering ink everywhere, and he suspected the lined pad of paper was not intended for use with this kind of writing implement.

“Prince Carlos! Oh dear,” remarked Cecil as Carlos got a particularly large splash of ink on his face.

“Sorry, Cecil. I’m not really used to-”

“Writing without proper furniture to accommodate you, I can tell.” Cecil had been standing several feet away, playing with Khoshekh, but he now let the ‘cat’ go and knelt behind Carlos. “You can lean against me, if that would help. I’m sure I won’t be as comfortable as whatever armchairs or such you humans have in your palace, but I must be better than nothing.”

Carlos did as Cecil suggested, though he didn’t think it would actually help. All concerns were pushed to the back of his mind as he focused on writing. He kept himself brief for a variety of reasons, including time concerns, lack of storytelling practice, and the difficulty of forming letters with a quill that kept throwing ink everywhere but the places Carlos wanted it.

It took three pages, mainly because of the sloppiness of Carlos’ writing and the number of times he had to go back and cross things out or just skip a section of the page that contained too many ink blots, but he came up with something that he hoped would get him home while also blending in with the voice of the narrative up to that point.

_The next morning they woke up as well-rested and as devoted to each other as they’d ever been._

“There,” said Carlos, putting the quill down next to the bottle of ink. His hands, as well as the quill, were smudged all over. “It’s done.”

“I’m so glad to hear that, Carlos!” Cecil’s voice came rumbling from behind him, making the flank that he was leaning against vibrate disconcertingly. “And this will be enough to convince your father, yes? And he’ll cease his destruction of the forest and you’ll come live with me while mounting a scientific study?”

Carlos didn’t know what Cecil was talking about, but he’d gotten used to playing along.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said. “I just… have to bring this back to him, I guess.” He rose to his feet, the centaur-Cecil doing likewise. What he really needed was to find a computer so he could transcribe the thing and get it posted.

As if in response to his thoughts, Carlos’ surroundings altered themselves, and he found himself standing in his living room. He didn’t see any computers, though. Insead he was confronted with a nude photograph of himself.

It was printed on canvas, at least three feet wide. Not close to life-size, but still, it took up an uncomfortable amount of space. And he had to wonder why he would be wearing his glasses while lounging naked at home, when they were only really useful for doing precision work in the lab. While he was pondering this question, he heard a door open behind him.

“Hello Carlos!” Cecil’s voice called out. Carlos turned around to see a perfectly ordinary-looking Cecil walking into the room. “How was…  _Oh_ .”

Cecil stopped short, mouth hanging open as he saw the photograph propped up behind Carlos. Watching the look of awe on his boyfriend’s face, Carlos felt a whole series of emotions that mostly added up to embarrassment. The picture wasn’t of him, not really. He’d never taken nude photos of himself at all, let alone had them blown up and turned into art prints. And while he could certainly understand the appeal in nude photos of one’s romantic partner, he wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to assume that Cecil would want something like this.

“For me?” Asked Cecil. Carlos shrugged, about to launch into some sort of haphazard explanation for the photo, when he realized that Cecil was pointing at his hand.

“No!” Carlos replied immediately, holding up the pad of paper that held his all-important story conclusion. There was no way he was going to hand it off to anyone before he’d typed it up.

“It says Cecil on it,” Cecil countered, reaching out. As he did so, Carlos realized there was something else in his hand; an envelope that did indeed bear Cecil’s name. He peeled it away from his paper, where it had become stuck due to spots of ink.

“Sorry about the stains,” said Carlos, handing the envelope to Cecil.

“It’s perfect,” said Cecil, even as the dark ink smudged his thumb. He ripped open the envelope and removed a handwritten note from inside it. “ _Dear Cecil,_ ” he read, “ _In honor of our anniversary, I’ve decided to present you with something to keep you company when I have to work late at the lab. I know this can’t make up for all the times I’ve left you lonely, but I hope it will go some way toward reminding you that I still love you when I’m not there to do it in person._ Carlos! This is so sweet.  _The picture is titled ‘Thinking of You.’ Enclosed you’ll find a smaller copy, which I was thinking you could keep at work._ ” Cecil pulled a smaller print of the photo out of the envelope. “ _Someplace discreet, of course. Perhaps in a drawer, and you could take it out when none of the interns are looking. Thank you for giving me the best year of my life. Love, Carlos._ Oh, thank you Calos, this really is perfect!” Cecil threw his arms around Carlos, still holding the letter.

“I’m glad you like it, Cecil,” said Carlos, extricating himself from the other man’s embrace. “But, right now I really need to find a computer. Do you know where my laptop is?”

Cecil’s eyes went wide. “Carlos! You know ownership of personal computers is closely restricted by the city council!” Leaning in close and whispering, he said, “Which is why I’m pretty sure you keep yours at your lab,” and winked.

“Right, of course, Cecil. I was just testing you. Um, I’ve got some work to do at the lab, so, I guess, I’ll see you in a little bit, okay?”

“Okay, Carlos.” Cecil gave an understanding smile, then looked to the large print of Carlos. “At least I’ve got this to keep me company.”

Carlos forced himself to smile back as he left. He knew that that was  _not_  the real Cecil, but he’d acted so much like Carlos would expect him to. It was hard to believe he was just an imitation of Carlos’ actual boyfriend. If the plan didn’t work, Carlos reflected that being stuck here with this particular Cecil wouldn’t be so bad.

Then again, he probably wouldn’t get a chance to stay in this reality for very long. If past experiences were any precedent he’d likely end up being psychologically tortured and/or physically assaulted again within a few hours. The thought spurred him to drive a little faster. He had to save himself while he had the opportunity.

The lab was empty when he arrived, which struck Carlos as unusual for the time of day. Of course, he couldn’t be sure what the time actually was, given that Cecil was in possession of Night Vale’s only reliable timepiece. The sun was out, though, and the scientists usually worked during daylight.

Carlos looked around the lab, and found his laptop hidden under the table where he usually sat while doing data entry. Grabbing the flash drive from around his neck, he installed the Real Life browser and logged into Tied43rd’s account. He moved as quickly as he could, clicking “Add Chapter” and beginning to transcribe what he’d written. This one would be, the form told him, Chapter 31. Carlos did not bother giving it a title.

For a few minutes, Carlos did the mindless task of deciphering his writing and typing it up. It gave him time to think, and he began puzzling over something that had been bothering him since he’d started reading through fan posts about Night Vale.

Lucy hadn’t been on the list of Night Vale residents arranged from most to least beautiful. In fact, she pretty much hadn’t been anywhere on Tumblr. It seemed fans of the podcast didn’t even know she existed, probably because Cecil hadn’t mentioned her in any of the broadcasts that they’d heard.

That in itself wasn’t terribly unusual. Plenty of other people hadn’t been mentioned in the podcast. Like Cecil’s niece, Janice. The audience out there had no idea Cecil even had a niece. (In fact, many fans seemed to be under the impression that Steve Carlsberg was Cecil’s ex-boyfriend. Carlos would have to tell Cecil about that; it would crack him up.)

But Lucy… while she hadn’t been mentioned in the podcast, and she didn’t show up in fan works because the fans had no way of knowing about her, she  _did_ show up in “The Tyranny of Headcanons.” Quite a lot, actually. The story mentioned her repeatedly, and on the one hand that made sense, because she’d been heavily involved in those events, but on the other hand,  _how_ had whoever wrote that story known about Lucy?

Just as Carlos reached the end of his typing, he figured it out. At the same time, the door to the lab opened.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said, not looking up.

“How did you know it was me?” Lucy asked.

Carlos didn’t answer her directly. “You’re not mentioned in the podcast. I mean, sure, neither is Rachelle, but you… Did you realize you have the same name as Lucy Gutierrez? I saw her name on the wiki, but it didn’t even occur to me.” He scrolled up a little ways, and placed his cursor for a last-minute addition. “You kept me running around so long, I couldn’t see it.” He started typing. “But you’re a classic Mary Sue. It should’ve been obvious. The twin sister to a woman renowned for her beauty, but it turns out you’re also even smarter than the lead scientist. And it’s not ‘Tied Forty-Third.’ It’s ‘ _Tied For Third.’_ Only you’re not third on the list of beautiful Night Vale residents, because you’re not actually a Night Vale resident at all. You’re a parasite, and I’m going to get rid of you.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Carlos.”

Having just completed his impromptu edits, Carlos looked up to see Lucy pointing what looked like a pulp fiction ray gun at him. He suppressed a groan at the hacky sci-fi cliche.

“Too late,” he said.

As soon as Carlos clicked “Post,” Lucy disappeared, as if she had never existed. Of course, in a sense she hadn’t. There was undoubtedly some young woman out there who’d developed the character, who likely even shared the same name, but she was certainly not Cactus Judy’s twin sister, and likely only dreamed of being either beautiful or brilliant. It was sad, in a way.

Carlos immediately clicked “Edit” and selected “Orphan this work.” Now the original Tied43rd would have no means of recourse. That done, Carlos put his laptop away and returned to where Cecil was waiting for him.

This time, there was no sudden feeling of freedom, no immediate return to the status quo. This time, it was merely Carlos coming home after a day of Science to find his loving boyfriend awaiting his presence. They had dinner, and talked about their days. Carlos didn’t go into details about everything he’d been through. It was still too painful to reminisce. He knew he’d have to ask the Night Vale Psychological Associationabout getting a referral for a therapist.

When it came to telling Cecil about the experience, he settled for “I had a weird day.” Cecil didn’t seem to require any elaboration.

They went to bed, and fell asleep easily, getting a great deal of much-needed peaceful slumber. The next morning they woke up as well-rested and as devoted to each other as they’d ever been.

Cecil made breakfast for Carlos, insisting that anyone who’d had a weird day yesterday deserved to be pampered. Carlos gratefully tucked into a mushroom omelet while Cecil bounced around the kitchen, cleaning up after his cooking before he sat across from Carlos at the table. As Carlos reached for his cup of coffee, Cecil took a sip of orange milk, and Carlos noticed that Cecil had apparently not poured any coffee for himself.

“What happened to your habitual morning pick-me-up?” Carlos asked, gesturing with his mug.

“Huh? Oh.” Cecil looked down at his glass like he’d been caught, then grinned sheepishly. “I was going to tell you tonight, but… well, you know that phone call I got this morning? Or maybe you don’t; you seemed pretty well asleep. But, anyway, it was from Teddy Williams, with news from my last check-up.”

“Oh no, is it something with your blood pressure? Or is your Lyme disease flaring up again?”

Cecil shook his head. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Not at all.” He put his glass of orange milk down and held out his arms in a gesture of triumph. “Carlos, I’m pregnant!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who has ever contributed to the Night Vale fandom. This work is shaped by everything you've all done.
> 
> This work was influenced by far too many other works to list them all individually. Really, _everything_ has inspired me. 
> 
> The stories that Carlos experiences in this work are not direct takes on specific stories that have actually been written; rather, they are based on ideas that I've seen in this fandom, filtered through my own interpretations. There is a hypothetical story in my head for all the ones that Carlos visits.


End file.
